As I prepare to publish a book about how Scripture comes to life in counseling and caring for souls, I find it necessary and appropriate to include a chapter on suffering. I’m sharing it as a blog here, in hopes that it hits the mark for readers who have either suffered great losses themselves or have cared for other people in their time of suffering.
People generally do not seek professional or ministry support when everything is just peachy in their lives. They are probably feeling an intolerable level of acute or chronic psychological pain. They need our compassionate presence.
If they are Christians, they may be experiencing a crisis of faith. They thought they were living right. They saw themselves as honest, caring, generous, and faithful. Yet somehow misfortune, illness, or loss have caught and captured them. It doesn’t make sense, and they want us to wrestle through this dilemma with them.
We must practice good care and good theology. Theodicy is the name of a branch of theology that attempts to reconcile the existence of God with the existence of evil and suffering in the world. The classic dilemma is often presented like this:
If God exists, he is either all-powerful or all-good, but not both. If he has the power to prevent suffering and does not, he can’t be good. But a good God would prevent suffering if he could, so he must not be all-powerful. The Bible contains a lengthy case study that helps us explore this ancient and perplexing riddle.
Job is the character in the Bible most associated with loss, pain, and suffering. The book begins by describing his life– great wealth, ten children, huge herds of livestock and many servants. He is the greatest man in the land in the worldly sense. But he is also described as upright and blameless in character, showing faithful devotion to God. Job “feared God and shunned evil” (1:1). He presented God with burnt offerings, not only for his own sake, but in behalf of his children, in case they had sinned or “cursed God in their hearts” (1:5).
The next scene in Job’s tale is a council in heaven attended by God and some heavenly beings, including Satan, the fallen angel. It is not clear whether Satan was invited to the meeting, but he showed up, with great and tragic consequences for our friend Job. Satan’s reports that he’s been wandering about the earth. Strangely, God then calls attention to “my servant Job” (1:8), affirming his righteous conduct:
“There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil” (1:8).
Satan immediately challenges God with the proposition that Job only worships and serves God because God has placed a “hedge” (v.10) of protection around him. Take away all that he has, Satan says, and Job will curse and deny you.
God gives Satan permission to destroy everything Job has—ALL of his children, his animals, and his servants. As if this isn’t enough, Satan returns to court asking permission to attack Job’s body with boils from head to toe as a further test of his trust in God. Satan does everything short of killing Job. After all of this unbearable loss and illness, we find Job sitting in the ashes, grieving and scratching himself with shards of pottery. His wife tells him to curse God and die, but he replies in his misery:
“You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?” In all this, Job did not sin in what he said. (1:9-10).
Some version of this ancient scenario is often brought to counseling offices, especially by Christians who have tried very hard to live God-honoring lives and have been stricken with sudden grief, sickness, and suffering. They don’t understand; they can’t conceive of what they’ve done to bring on such pain. In this circumstance, they are applying what psychologists call the just world hypothesis. The American Psychological Association defines this as:
“…the idea that the world is a fair and orderly place where what happens to people generally is what they deserve. In other words, bad things happen to bad people, and good things happen to good people.”[1]
This commonly manifests in blaming the victim, judging people responsible in some way for the troubles that have befallen them. For example, we believe, almost automatically, that rape victims must have dressed provocatively, or led on the rapist, or recklessly went to a dangerous part of town.[2]
We see this automatic way of thinking amongst Jesus’s disciples in John 9, when they ask Jesus if a man was born blind because of his own sins, or because of his parents’ sins. Jesus’s answer reveals that it was neither; it was an occasion for God to be glorified in the man’s healing.
This cause and affect attribution is displayed horribly and harmfully throughout the monologues of Job’s friends. They started out well in extending compassion and support when they heard about the catastrophes Job had suffered. They traveled a great distance, wept with and for Job, and sat in the ashes with him for seven days, saying nothing.
Then they started speaking, and the just world hypothesis is what came from their lips. They each had subtly different ways of phrasing and interpreting it but, bottom line, they believed that Job couldn’t really be blameless, because God wouldn’t allow such punishment of a blameless person. To paraphrase, their message was, “Fess up, Job. What did you do to offend God? At the very least, Job don’t presume that you are innocent, because your circumstances say otherwise.”
Eliphaz goes first, surmising that Job is being reproved and disciplined by God because of some hidden iniquity in his heart. Then Bildad implies that Job’s children died because of their sin. Zophar goes a step further, suggesting that Job has received less punishment than his guilt deserves. Later in the book, another young friend, Elihu, angrily chimes in, accusing Job of “justifying himself rather than God” (32:2).
Job rigorously defends himself against his friends’ judgments. He calls them “miserable comforters” with their “long-winded arguments” (16:2-3) that only bring more torment. Job maintains his conviction that he has walked righteously before God. He cries,
“I will never admit you are in the right; till I die, I will not deny my integrity” (27:5).
But this doesn’t satisfy his own need to know the cause and meaning of his calamity. In his immeasurable grief, Job is desperate to understand God’s mind and purpose in it all, and perhaps find a bit of comfort. He knows his only hope is to hear directly from God. Job pleads repeatedly that God would give him an attorney or mediator and a court date (in a contemporary manner of speaking), so that can argue his case and receive God’s verdict.
Eventually, even Job stops talking, and God starts to speak “out of the whirlwind” (38:1). God asks Job dozens of rhetorical questions that prove the sovereignty of God and the mysteries of his creation. He refers to snow, hail, wind, light, rain, thunder, deserts, grass, dew, frost, stars, constellations, galaxies, lightning, the strength of horses, the birthing of animals, the nesting of birds, and more.
Paraphrasing again, God says, Hey Job, were you around when the universe came into being? Did you create any of it? Can you possibly comprehend the beauty and order of my creation? Don’t you realize that you can only understand what I give you to understand? Can you do any of the things that I can do? He concludes,
“Who has a claim against me that I must pay? Everything under heaven belongs to me” (41:11).
In light of God’s transcendent majesty and power, Job is quieted. He confesses his helplessness and surrenders in trust to the God who speaks.
“I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted… My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes” (42:2, 5-6).
Thankfully, the story ends with Job’s full restoration, physically, relationally, financially, and spiritually. He lives many more years, has ten more children, and lives to a good old age, long enough to know his great-grandchildren.
So, how can Job’s story inform us as we care for those who are suffering? There are several very applicable lessons.
- When people are suffering and grieving, we must be slow to speak. We quietly and calmly offer the ministry of our presence. We let them know we are safe and can be trusted with their pain. We’re not afraid of it. We don’t have to rush to explain it.
- As they wrestle with their Why questions, we let them lead the way to their own discovery of meaning. We don’t impose our own meanings on them. They may discover a sin or rebellion issue that opened a door for Satan. They may remember that in this fallen world many unfair and cruel things happen that are beyond our control. They may conclude that they suffer because of the actions of others, and it is not their fault. They may decide that whatever the causes of their pain, they will allow it to lead them to a closer walk with God, because God often uses trials to mature and sanctify us. They may rightly blame Satan for their misfortune. These are just a few of the conclusions they might find. But it is their right to seek and find their answers, not ours. We merely support them in their search.
- We avoid the just world hypothesis. We don’t act like Job’s friends and suggest that suffering people get what they deserve because of something wrong in them or their actions. Even if we think there is some truth to this, we allow the word and the spirit to reveal truth in God’s manner and timing.
- We, like Job, never deny the love of God or cease trusting in him, and we model this for others. Satan works constantly and powerfully to influence believers to doubt the love and goodness of God. But Jesus is our high priest; he is acquainted with grief and feels our suffering with us (Heb.2:18, 4:15 Is.53:3). We gently remind our suffering friends and clients of Jeremiah’s declaration, “Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. (Lam. 3:22).
Paul E. Little reminds us, in his discussion of God, evil, and suffering,
“Peace comes when we recognize that in this life we do not have the full picture…but we can affirm, with calm relief and joy, that in ‘all things God works for the good of those who love him (Rom. 8:28)…At times it is our reaction to suffering, rather than the suffering itself, that determines whether the experience is one of blessing or of blight. The same sun melts the butter and hardens the clay.”[3]
[1] Just world hypothesis, American Psychological Association, APA Dictionary of Psychology, https://dictionary.apa.org/just-world-hypothesis.
[2] There is a parallel in the Hindu concept of karma, except that current suffering is attributed to wrongdoing in a past life. This is why Hindus have historically been so merciless toward their “untouchables.” They believe this caste of humans deserve their unfortunate existence as a judgment on past sins.
[3] Paul S. Little, Know Why You Believe, Intervarsity Press, 2008.
