Job lost his riches, his ten children, and his health. And Job was a man so righteous that God told Satan there was no one like Job on the whole earth (Job 1:8, 2:3). Clearly a man that righteous deserved an easy life. But God had other plans.
So is God unjust?
Job’s friends were sure God could not be unfair, so they assumed Job was hiding sin in his heart. One had the gall to tell Job that his children had sinned too, and that’s why God took them (see Job 8:4). But Job knew he and his children were innocent. So Job said God was unfair.
“It is God who has wronged me and caught me in His net…. He uproots my hope like a tree. His anger burns against me, and He regards me as one of His enemies.” Job 19:6, 10-11.
Job literally said, “God has wronged me.” Is Job correct? Did God wrong Job? Job and his friends saw only two possible answers: Either (1) Job had sinned gravely and God was giving him the just payment for those sins, or (2) Job was innocent and God was unfair.
Could there be a third option? Can we suffer horribly, not deserve it, and God remain just?
Yes.
God’s ways are higher than our ways (Isaiah 55:9). His ways are “past finding out” (Romans 11:33). That is all we need to know—Job is innocent (as God said to Satan above) and God lets him suffer anyway. We must accept that we can’t figure out God, and we have no right to sit in judgment over Him and say whether He is just or unjust.
Who are you, oh man, who answers back to God? Who do you think you are? The pot does not say to the potter, “Why are you making me this way?” Romans 9:20,21.
In the words of the old poem-turned-play: “Your arm’s too short to box with God!”
It is not our role to question Him.
But there is more: Heaven. Did you forget? This life is NOT all there is. Believers who lived in the time of Job knew little about Heaven. But that is the key: Job will receive justice and blessings in Heaven. Heaven is the good side of the tapestry. This life is like the back side of a tapestry or needlepoint—all we see is threads all mixed up and going every which way. But after we get to Heaven, the picture will be beautiful and everything will make sense. Our suffering will make sense. In Heaven, we will be blessed and we will be rewarded so much that it will be more than fair. And of course, this life is short, a dot in eternity. We think the dot is everything, but a line extends from that dot and goes on forever. In Heaven you and I and Job will be blessed forever and ever and ever. No, God is not unfair.
And Job knows that. In the middle of all his complaining, he affirms his faith. He knows that God will redeem him and make sense of his life and bless him somehow. He knows that God is good, and when he thinks about that, he longs to see God’s face. It is a beautiful statement of faith from a man who has lost everything and who just said that God uprooted his hope like a tree:
“I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end, He will stand upon the earth, and, though my skin be destroyed, yet in my flesh I WILL see God. With my own eyes, I will see Him. How my heart years within me.” Job 19:25-27.
No matter what you may be suffering today, God is fair. God is good. And He will make it right. God will redeem your life and make sense of the mess, even if you caused the mess. He is your redeemer, your FIXER, and He will fix you. And for everything you suffer on earth, He will reward you in Heaven.
Dear God, change our hearts. Never let us doubt you or blame you.
ΑΩ
Household Words: 