In my view, besides our relationship with God, each of us typically desire three key treasures—health, possessions, and family. A loss to any can be heart wrenching. The Old Testament patriarch Job experienced a triple test—financial ruin, the deaths of his ten children, and painful ill health (Job 1:14-19, 2:7). We can’t imagine the intensity of pain Job had to bear.
Coming to comfort him (Job 2:11), his three friends invariably raised the million-dollar question: “Why do we suffer?” Over three rounds of heated disagreement (Job 4:1–14:22; Job 15:1–21:34; Job 22:1–27:23), they maintained that suffering is always the result of sin. But Job could not accept their one-dimensional explanation.
In bitter pain, Job reached out to God, wanting to know the reasons for his suffering (Job 23:1-5), for he had lived a blameless life (Job 1:1,8). But God could not be found. At the time when Job most desperately needed Him, God was seemingly absent, not making His ways known (Job 23:3,8-9).
You may have asked God at times: “Where are You when I’m hurting?” How can we cope with life’s tragedies when God doesn’t seem to care?
After pouring out his lament, Job eventually experienced God and reaffirmed his trust in Him (Job 23:10-12). God may have been silent, but He wasn’t absent. And Job could even say that good would come out of his pain: “When [God] tests me, I will come out as pure as gold” (Job 23:10).
Life’s suffering tests our faith and our obedient trust (Job 23:11-12). When experiencing personal loss, let’s “[fall] to the ground to worship,” praise Him (Job 1:20-21), and “be thankful in all circumstances” (1 Thessalonians 5:18). And may we draw strength from God’s Word, treasuring “his words more than daily food” (Job 23:12).