Not WHY but WHO.

The underlying question that Job and his misguided friends are entertaining throughout this book is "Why am I suffering?" or more specifically, they're trying to wrestle with what seems to be a contradiction in the experiences of our life: "How do we explain sin and suffering, if there exists a God powerful enough to do something about them?"
We get to be audience to their lengthy conversation. We really get to dive into the details of their struggle as they search for answers and dispute conclusions. One possible explanation that the friends wander across is essentially the concept that "good things happen to good people while bad people are punished for their sin." Job essentially responds to this conclusion, "You jerks! You think you're better than me! Don't you see how my world has fallen apart?" And we can hardly blame Job for his frustration.

As those who are called to care for the suffering in our midst, we Christians learn a lot from the mistakes of Job's friends. It goes on and on as we, the audience, get a little tired of their cyclical conversations and their lack of knowledge or WISDOM, as David earlier differentiated. In fact, Job's friends showed the most wisdom in caring for their friend when they initially reacted to his suffering: "...when Job's three friends... heard about all the troubles that had come upon him, they set out from their homes and met together by agreement to go and sympathize with him and comfort him. When they saw him from a distance, they could hardly recognize him; they began to weep aloud, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads. Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was," (Job 2:11-13). It's when they opened their big mouths that it quickly went downhill.
Often times we fall into the same trap when we are in the presence of people who are suffering. Sometimes its not so much in what we say but what we refrain from saying: "When words are many, sin is not absent, but he who holds his tongue is wise," Proverbs 10:19.

As we readers have been drug through the friends' lengthy philosophical dispute, we can discover that Job and his friends have been searching for answers and explanations, proofs to justify the horrific tragedies that befell Job. But what they really needed were not PROOFS but PRESENCE. They were searching for answers and explanations, and what they really needed was God himself. Not WHY, but WHO. Who's the one who can bring you through the suffering and darkness to healing and life on the other side? Only God, the one who created all life and continues to sustain it to this day, who's causing you to breathe even now. Nothing short of God himself.
There are echoes of this conclusion in Job's statements throughout the book. "If only there were someone to arbitrate between us, to lay his hand on us both, someone to remove God's rod from me, so that his terror would frighten me no more," Proverbs 9:33-34.
Job, if only you really knew. But you're pointing the way forward to His coming as a man. The one who arbitrates or mediates between us and God is Jesus, God's own Son. "For there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all men..." 1 Timothy 2:5.

Job says later in the book, as Scott aptly pointed out, "I know that my Redeemer lives...!" Proverbs 19:25. Job exclaims in this section of verses one of the most profound statements regarding the resurrection, "after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God." Not only is Jesus still alive, but we, as believers in Him, will share in His resurrection!

In a little while in our readings we'll see that God himself does come to Job in a violent storm. Job still really doesn't receive answers and explanations, but He gets God Himself, exactly what he'd been needing all along.

It's so easy to get lost in wandering through various theories of why suffering is happening to us, and to desperately want answers, as though God has some explaining to do to us. But what we really need is God himself. What we really need is to plead with Him, to speak with Him in prayer, to trust in Him. In order to live true WISDOM, we must begin with the fear of the Lord. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline," Proverbs 1:7.

Thanks for reading.

Pastor Karl