God Is Good

August 28, 2008

By Bob Caldwell

A very early Peanuts comic strip showed Lucy begging a reluctant Charlie Brown to read her a book. He read: “Once upon a time, they lived happily ever after. The end.” Then he walked away. Lucy flipped through the book, puzzled. “Hey!” she said to Charlie Brown, “What’s on the rest of these pages? Advertising?”

Isn’t that how many of us treat the Book of Job? It starts with a good story: two chapters explaining how Job came to be in misery. Then a final chapter where everything is restored to him. But what about the stuff in between? Chapter after chapter of Job complaining and his friends accusing. On and on it goes. How many Bible-reading plans fail because of the difficulty of slogging through Job? Most of us treat the majority of the book as if it were advertising.

However, it is in the dialogue between Job and his friends, and in God’s response, that we find the real meaning of the book. When I take the time to read through all of the laments and accusations, I draw one inescapable conclusion: Although they end up with different results, both Job and his friends have the same theology — and it is wrong.

Job’s friends believe that God blesses only the righteous and brings calamity only on the wicked. Therefore, since Job has been so afflicted, he obviously has sinned. Consequently, they get mad at his insistence of righteousness.

Job believes that God blesses only the righteous and brings calamity only on the wicked. Therefore, since Job has been so afflicted, there is some mistake. Job challenges God to either explain himself or to show him the sin that he is sure does not exist.

Do you see it? They believe the same thing. In general, we agree that God tends to bless the righteous and punish the wicked in this life, but that is only in general. Their mistake (and ours) is to make this general principle an absolutely specific rule. You don’t need to live long to have determined that many who have easy lives are wicked and that many who try to live for God are in poverty.

This seemingly unfair result of life has always puzzled humankind. For example, check out Asaph’s lament in Psalm 73. The Book of Job is merely the earliest reflection of the question: “Why do the righteous suffer?”

While it is true that God does not answer Job’s question to explain why He does what He does, He gives the answer that He thinks is important — His correctness in determining what should be done in every situation. God emphasizes He is so different that His power and purposes are beyond our understanding.

Naturally, I want to understand why I suffer. I want to know what greater purpose is being served. And I want to know it while I am suffering, not at some future time or in heaven. But this insistence — like Job’s — is not the way of faith. It is like saying, “I will trust God only when I understand what He is doing and can determine for myself that it is the best way.” That is not trust at all.

In the end, Job did get it. His answer to God can be summarized as, “I was foolish enough to say that I knew more than God. I have nothing more to say.”

Does this mean that every time we suffer, we need to smile and declare, “God’s will be done?” I don’t think so. When we suffer, we mourn. When we experience loss, we grieve. When we don’t understand what is going on, we cry out to God.

But in all of it, we must remember that the God who created the universe is still concerned with the tiniest details of our lives. And because of His infinite knowledge, He is never surprised at what happens. He knows the end result in advance and understands how best to accomplish His purpose.

We don’t have to always like it, but we need to trust that He is God and that He is good.

— Bob Caldwell is a Ph.D. candidate at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis.