“Does God put their thumb on the scales,
the All-Powerful twist what is just?
If your children committed wrong
shouldn’t the Divine sentence them for their sin?
If you sought out God,
the favor of the All-Powerful;
If, this moment, you were pure, clean, and just
you’d be raised up, rewarded to live righteously” (Job 8.3-6).
What if Bildad’s right? What if the whole Trio is right and it’s really that easy? What if Job’s wrong. What if I’m wrong?
God is just and righteous. We can start there, sure. Why else take the risk of taking on human flesh—these frail and sometimes achy bodies that are too weak to stand up to any real temptation—if not to save them, to make us righteous. God came in Christ to teach, to be an example so as to show us the way we can live life more abundantly?
Sure, Jesus died, but that’s so we don’t have to, right? And to show us ever and after that when bad stuff happens to us it’s because we’ve strayed off the path somehow. Because Jesus’ death and resurrection took all that away for the good. So, if someone’s suffering, it’s just like Bildad says, it’s ultimately our fault. We brought it on ourselves.
Okay, it seems to break down when we see innocent people killed in the streets, and when we walk down the halls of a children’s oncology unit. But the universe is bigger than us, more mysterious and complicated. God’s ways aren’t our ways; so, some stuff is bound not to make sense. If God is just and is truly God then the universe bends toward justice, doesn’t it?
We don’t know anyone’s heart, after all. I don’t always know my own. I’ve got my little buried sins that I fool myself into thinking God doesn’t know anything about. And, maybe the suffering near me is my fault. Like Bildad’s sort of saying about Job’s kids, folks suffer when they’re in our proximity.
And all Job’s go to do, all I’ve got to do is confess everything and live morally and righteously and all blessings will begin to flow. Oh, I don’t mean to the extreme of those prosperity folks, but good living where nobody’s getting sick, we never have to worry about bad storms, and no beloved animals are dying.
It’d make it easier, wouldn’t it? Everything would make sense. I wouldn’t have to look toward Heaven and wonder why. Why is there so much pain in this old world? I’d know that it wasn’t anybody’s fault but those who suffer. It may seem cruel, but God’s ways aren’t our ways.
The only thing that gets in my way is just how easy it is. It almost makes too much sense. As though, I don’t know, that I understand it too well. It’s like, I want it to be this way.
If it’s true, then there’s not much I can do about the suffering I see, is there? It’s on those people who just lost their home or on the neighbor who lost their job. It might be mean or insensitive to say it, but it’s all out of my hands. It’s between them and God. I don’t have to get involved.
But what if Bildad’s wrong?
God, help me admit where I may be wrong.