01/21/16

I just began a read-the-bible-in-90-days thingy.
The schedule is in chronological order, which is kinda annoying and interesting all at the same time. Annoying because you are reading a lot of the same stories over and over in the same reading. And interesting because it gives you a better perspective and deeper insight.

Anyway, because of this, I was reading like a million chapters in Job.

I was reading out loud (my mind likes to wander, and it is easier for me to grasp the meaning of the words when I am reading slowly and aloud) and the story kind of hit me differently than it ever has. Usually I find the story of Job to be, well, you know... maybe a bit boring. I mean, thirty some chapters of arguing and lamenting can do that. But this time around, I found the dialog to be captivating, and surprisingly humorous. I don't know why, but on a few occasions some of the things that were said had me laughing.

There were so many gems that I stole away while reading this book, to many to share now. But I just want to focus on one.

That is the question "why?".
Why does God allow bad things to happen to innocent people?

The issue that Job had was that he didn't understand. He didn't understand why God would allow all of these things to happen to him when he knew that he was innocent. His friends tried to convince him that the reasoning was in some big sin that Job committed in his life that God was punishing him for. But Job knew it wasn't so.

Yet, he still didn't know why. That had him in despair so deep that he cursed the day he was born and just wanted to die.

Growing up in an environment that you could call perfect, we don't really see on a first hand basis the real suffering in this world. It wasn't until later in my life that I was awakened to it and began seeing the suffering, especially that of the innocents in this world.

Reading the story of Job made me recall these times that I put faces to the suffering.

Seeing a picture of a perfect, beautiful baby boy that was killed by an illegal late term abortion. I cried for days.
Giving a hug to an elderly woman who was starving for love, without family during the holidays.
Holding the hand of a little girl who had been taken in by foster parents and seeing the reserved pain in her big sister's eyes.
Reading Dickens. The compelling way he writes his stories bring the suffering children to life, especially with the knowledge that he wrote from real life experience.
Hearing the orphan's story from a dear family that welcomed them into their home recently.

The innocent. The helpless.
The unanswered question.

Then God speaks.
He says, where were you when I made the earth?
Can you make the rain or snow? Can you tell the lightening where to go?
Who gives the birds their food? Who sees the sparrow fall?
Who is the one that numbers the hairs on your head?

Do we need to know why? Or can we just be like Job, who after God finishes speaking says "I know that you can do everything, and that no thought can be withholden from you. I have uttered what I did not understand. things to wonderful for me, which I did not know."

Can we have faith enough to offer up the suffering of other's to God and then trust Him to know?

He is holding the innocent along with the answers to all of our questions.
He holds all of our lives close to His heart.

For me, it is enough to know that God's got this.
To know that He can do everything. And He knows what He is doing, no matter what happens.

And you know, the story of Job has a happy ending.