By no means can we infer that our own trials are, like Job’s, specially arranged by God to settle some decisive issue in the universe. But we can safely assume that our limited range of vision will in similar fashion distort reality. Pain narrows vision. The most private of sensations, it forces us to think of ourselves and little else. From Job, we can learn that much more is going on out there than we may suspect. Job felt the weight of God’s absence; but a look behind the curtain reveals that in one sense God had never been more present. In the natural world, human beings only receive about
...more
