A Lesson From Suffering

One of the greatest difficulties in life is coping with suffering when it touches you and the people you love. Popular opinion says: “If you love God and do your best to serve Him, your life will be free from suffering.” This notion has circulated for thousands of years but is dead wrong! Sometimes the opposite is true. Some of the greatest heroes in the Bible endured tremendous suffering.  Suffering can touch our lives in various ways. Our physical health can be taken from us; our most important relationships in life may be lost, damaged, or destroyed; our emotional health may be attacked by stress, grief, or a host of other problems; our spiritual lives may be shaken as we fight spiritual battles.

Like Job, his wife, and friends, we struggle with the question: “Why am I, or the people I love suffering?” That’s why the age-old book of Job still speaks to us today. Job addresses the question: “Why does God allow His people to suffer?” Each character offered a reason why Job was suffering, or a response on how he should react, but God alone offered the real answers.