Why Do You Bother?
One day the angels came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came with them. The LORD said to Satan, “Where have you come from?”
Satan answered the LORD, “From roaming through the earth and going back and forth in it.”
Then the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.”
“Does Job fear God for nothing?” Satan replied. “Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. But stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face.”
The LORD said to Satan, “Very well, then, everything he has is in your hands, but on the man himself do not lay a finger.”
Then Satan went out from the presence of the LORD. (Job 1:6-12)
Do you serve God for what you think you’ll get out of it, or because of what God will get out of it? That is, do you love yourself alone, or do you love God? Satan was certain that Job cared about God for the same reason most people care about anything: because of what he got out of it. Most relationships in the world are tit for tat: you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. We spend time with people we like, who like us back. We love people because, in some way, they’re useful to us: they’re fun, make us laugh, or in some way benefit us. As soon as that benefit leaves—they disappoint us, betray us, mistreat us, or don’t give us what we need—we leave them in search of someone else. We find new friends who will treat us better.
So Satan had good reason to think Job would turn against God as soon as the pain started. Satan had a lot of experience with human beings and he saw how we treated each other and why they usually related to each other. Satan didn’t understand love, since he hadn’t really ever experienced it before. Job was a big surprise to him, a man who served God because he loved God, not because he saw a payoff down the line for it. Loving is not always the easy thing to do. But God always loves us, no matter what.
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