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“Suffering is having what you don’t want or wanting what you don’t have.”
We’re talking about two different levels on which things are to be understood. And again and again in the Scriptures we have what seem to be complete paradoxes because we’re talking about two different kingdoms. We’re talking about this visible world and an invisible Kingdom on which the facts of this world are interpreted.
And He has a lot up His sleeve that you and I haven’t the slightest idea about now. He’s told us enough so that we know that suffering is never for nothing.
And here we have a mystery that we cannot begin to explain.
You see Job here dialoguing with God. There is no question in Job’s mind throughout this entire book of the existence of God. He knows that it is God with whom he has to reconcile his circumstances. Somebody is behind all this, he’s saying.
You shaped me and made me; now You’ve turned to destroy me. You kneaded me like clay, and now You’re grinding me to a powder.
God’s response to Job’s questions is mystery.
He knows the answers to these questions, of course. And he knows that Job most certainly cannot answer them. He is revealing to Job who He
Every one of us, I’m sure, sooner or later, has to face up to that painful question. Why? And God is saying, trust Me. If your prayers don’t get answered the way you thought they were
And now we’re saying, why doesn’t God do something about it? And the Christian answer is, He did. He became the victim, a lamb slain from before the foundation of the world.
this business of suffering. As I’ve said, the crux of the whole matter is the cross of Jesus Christ. And that word crux means cross. It is the best thing that ever happened in human history as well as the worst thing. Here in His love, the Scripture tells us. Not that we loved God here in His love, not that we loved God but that He loved us and gave Himself, no, here in His love that Christ laid down His life for us.
Suffering is a mystery. It is not explained, but it is affirmed. And we must remember that all of Christianity rests on mysteries.
