Suffering - Job 23 and Hebrews 12: 5-12

What I am going to discuss tonight isn’t an easy topic. In fact, it is bound to bring up memories of heartache and failures and trials. But I also know that it is time for us, as the Church, to have an open honest discussion about what it means to suffer.
The Book of Job, in the Old Testament, tells what seems to be the ultimate story of suffering. Some background before we look closer at chapter 23. Job was a devout servant of God’s. One day Satan decided that he wanted to prove to God that Job was only devout because of how blessed he was. In Satan’s words “Job fears God for nothing…Stretch out your hand now and touch all that he has and he will curse you to your face.” (1: 9b, 11) So God permitted Satan to test Job’s faith and prove that he was righteous, but commanded him not to kill Job. Fast forward. Satan continually attacks Job. He gets sores all over his body. All of his sons and daughters die. His livestock all perish. His life quickly went from comfortable to miserable. And everyone around Job, including his wife and friends insist that Job has made God’s wrath upon him and that he needs to repent of his sins in order to restore God’s good favor. His wife even told him that his life wasn’t worth living and that he was better off to curse God and die. However, Job knew in his heart that he hadn’t sinned against God..
Chapter 23, where we find ourselves this evening, is Job’s lament to God. A lament could be described as just simply crying out to God in anguish and telling him how things in life suck at the moment. All too often we feel that we need to put on a happy face for God, a mask. But he knows what’s in our heart, so we might as well tell him. Speak to God what you are thinking. While some are going to find this crass, there is a professor who once said that if you can’t think of any other word to describe what you are feeling, then curse in your prayers to God, because at least then you are being honest. The Psalms are filled with these prayers of distress, crying out in honesty to God. And here we have Job’s anguish laid out as he cries to God. He is essentially saying to God, hey I’ve done nothing to deserve this and if I knew where you where I would come and tell you that to your face. But this is not, hear me out, not Job finding pride in himself. Verse 6 he says “Would he contend with me in the greatness of his power? No; but he would give heed to me. There an upright person could reason with him, and I should be acquitted for ever by my judge.”
Even in Job’s absolute destitute state he still believes that God can rescue him. He might be crying out “Why God!?!” but he hasn’t lost faith that God can still redeem this situation. How many times have we been there? Totally able to identify with Job. When we’ve lost a job and a new one hasn’t come. When we get a diagnosis that alters our life. When we bury a spouse…or a child. We all have been where Job has been in one for or another, we have all been amidst suffering. When we cannot see two feet in front of us in the pitch blackness of life.
And really, Job hits the nail on the head, when in verse 8 he says, “If I go forward, he is not there; or backwards, I cannot perceive him.” We run into this problem along the path of life, where we cannot perceive him, thus we logically conclude that God has abandoned us. We cite that God obviously even abandoned Christ on the cross on Good Friday, when Jesus cries “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me” before taking his last breathe. But see we have made a fatal error. We have judged God’s presence by our ability to sense him, when suffering all so often shuts down all of our senses as we retreat inside of ourselves. Our eyesight is marred, because for the most part we can only see what we want to see, and since God isn’t acting in the way we wanted him to act, we conclude he isn’t there. When really he’s been there all along. Waiting for us to come to him.
Here’s the thing, God does not cause tragedies in our life to happen and he does not cause suffering. This is not in his nature. BUT he can redeem all of our suffering. He can take the messy, horrible moments in our lives and turn them into something beautiful, if we let him. But we have to choose to let him. If we continue to retreat into the darkness in an attempt to hid from the pain, we won’t find healing. Healing doesn’t come from the darkness, but only from the light. William P. Young’s book, The Shack, is a story all about human suffering during tragedies, and how God often gets blamed for tragedies instead of clung to for healing and wholeness and comfort. In the story, God speaks to the main character Mack, whose daughter was kidnapped, raped, and ultimately killed, about suffering. He says, “Mack, just because I work incredible good out of unspeakable tragedies does not mean I orchestrate the tragedies. Don’t ever assume that my using something means that I caused it or need it to accomplish my purpose. That will only lead to false notions about me. Grace doesn’t depend of suffering to exist, but where you find suffering you will find grace in many colors and facets.”
We are all going to have moments of grief in our lives. Moments when we don’t know how we are even going to get through the day because of the overwhelming sadness. Christ had those moments too. Look at the gospel story of Jesus in the Garden right before he was betrayed and abandoned by his disciples. He is on his needs before God praying “Dad, you could make what’s going to happen disappear. If it’s possible, can you make it so I don’t have to suffer and die But if this is the only way, I’ll do it.” I have a friend Jesse, who is such a source of wisdom to me. One conversation I’ve had with him, that I’ll never forget, is about these “Garden moments” as he calls them, in our lives. Those time that we are standing up at the sky yelling “Where are you GOD?” or crying “Why?” But what we don’t realize is that God is right there in the Garden with us, and our inability to perceive that is what makes everything so much more difficult. And we have a choice, to stay in the Garden, know that as we cry out to God that he will work everything out for our ultimate good because he loves us so much, or we can walk away from God because we assume that he is to blame. We forget who God is. And we forget that after the garden and the cross came the resurrection.
And there are going to be times in our lives when we ultimately blame for our own suffering. It’s a hard fact to swallow. Those times when we are so deep in sin that God has to attempt to discipline us, like a good parent, to get us back in line. He doesn’t want to punish us, but out of love he has to. But he is still not the cause of our suffering, our sin is! When I was little, around 3, I had a huge problem with biting people. And we’re not talking like playfully nibble on you, we are talking sinking baby teeth into flesh and leaving marks and making people bleed. I was out of control. So one day my dad bit me back. Not hard enough to make me bleed and not even half as nasty as I was to other people, but a bite none the less. And that, was the end of my biting. Period. Did my dad want to punish me or bring suffering to me? No. But if he didn’t do something then I was going to be out of control. And that is what the Hebrews passage is talking about:
“My child do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, or lose heart when you are punished by him. For the Lord disciplines those he loves and chastises every child whom he accepts. Endure trials for the sake of discipline….Discipline always seems painful rather than pleasant at the time, but later it yields the peaceful fruit or righteousness to those who have been trained by it.” Job ultimately says the same thing “When he tested me, I shall come out like Gold.” Brother and sisters God is redeeming us. As difficult as it is, take joy in that! When refiners work with Gold and Silver, they hold a piece of the precious metals over the fire and let it heat up in the middle of the fire, where the flames are the hottest. Only then can all of the impurities be burned away. And the smith has to sit in front of the fire during the entire process. And the most beautiful part of the process, is the end when the smith knows that the metal is fully refined when he can see his image in it. Sometimes we need to suffer to take away the impurities in our hearts, those things that keep us from God, so that his image can be seen in us! But like the smith, he never leaves us during the entire process.
Sometimes suffering just happens. And other times we cause it. But as I’ve been dwelling on suffering, I’m taken back to the image of the pearl. A stone formed by pain and suffering. God redeems all of our suffering because we are precious to him. And through all of our suffering we are being formed more in his image.
I’d like to close by reading a poem I wrote about suffering entitled Pearl:
I am a Pearl. Tested and tried.
Formed through suffering, pain, and joy.
Crafted by God's hand.
For His Delight.

I am a Pearl.
I have gone through some things that no one has ever went through.
And things that everyone has went through.
Broken hearts, scrapped knees, emotional wounds.
But I am for His Delight.

I am a Pearl.
I hold a unique color like no other Pearl.
I started out as something small, a piece of sand.
But I have grown so much, and now shine
For His Delight.

I am a Pearl.
God did not orchestrate my suffering.
But he has redeemed it.
I am beautiful and become even more so each day.
Because I am for His Delight.