naked I'll return to the womb of the earth.
God gives, God takes.
God's name be ever blessed." (Job 1:21, The Message)
Job
does not curse God as his wife suggests he should do, getting rid of the
problems by getting rid of God. But neither does Job explain suffering.
He does not instruct us in how to live so that we can avoid suffering.
Suffering is a mystery, and Job comes to respect the mystery. In the
course of facing, questioning, and respecting suffering, Job finds himself in
an even larger mystery -- the mystery of God. Perhaps the greatest
mystery in suffering is how it can bring a person into the presence of God in a
state of worship, full of wonder, love and praise. Suffering does not
inevitably do that, but it does it far more often than we would expect. It
certainly did that for Job. Even in his answer to his wife he speaks the
language of an uncharted irony, a dark and difficult kind of truth: "We
take the good days from God -- why not also the bad days?"
-- Eugene Peterson in “The
Message”
#4098
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