Hope for the Suffering (Job 25)

What hope can putrid sinners have before an awesome God?

That’s the question that Bildad asked Job in Job 25. Bildad believed Job was a putrid sinner, even going so far as to call him a maggot and worm. Of course, we are all spiritual maggots and worms before God if we are still dead in our sins, but if the grace of God has caused us to be born again through faith in Jesus Christ crucified and resurrected, then we are no longer maggots and worms but children of God.

Job was a child of God, but given his intense suffering, Bildad couldn’t believe it. As he saw things, God wouldn’t let one of his children suffer in the way Job had, so Job must not be a child of God. But this gets to the major truth that Job communicates to us: Sometimes the only wise God allows His children to suffer for reasons unknown to all but Him. We know from the opening chapters of Job that Job suffers for the glory of God and ultimately for his spiritual good, but that doesn’t make Job’s suffering any less tortuous.

Perhaps you too are being tortured by suffering—an illness that won’t heal, a relationship that won’t mend, a grief or sadness that won’t lift, an answer to prayer that won’t come through. And perhaps you don’t know the why of your suffering. We are often quick to blame ourselves or blame others, but sometimes no one has done anything wrong. Suffering is just a result of the sin-cursed world in which we live, and sometimes we are touched by the curse.

We can and do thank God that Jesus has come to break the curse for those who believe. One day we shall live in a land where the curse is no more. And we thank God that in His infinite wisdom, He uses our suffering to glorify Himself and bring us eternal good. But when we can’t presently see His glory or our good in our suffering, I hope we will remember that our suffering is not proof of disowning.

Even in suffering, we are God’s children, and we can trust our Father.