What can the innocent do when they suffer? Complain is the most logical thing. Ask for redress. Most times it works. The faithful would say pray, because it surely works. Extreme radicals would say endure and suffer in silence. Well, not me. I'd say complain. It's what Job did. [Photo above from Aarón Blanco Tejedor@blancotejedor].
Job the patriarch in the bible. Imagine what he suffered and lost. Imagine the deep pain and agony. And all because of a dare. It was none of his fault. He was not punished for any wrongdoing. He was made to suffer because of a challenge. Kinda like a game. God asked Satan if he had considered Job's unmatched faithfulness which Satan belittled and challenged. God accepted.
As simple as that. Then all hell broke loose, literally.
The story really scares me. Others celebrate the triumph of faith here, but more than that, it scares me what God can do--or might do--at the provocation of the enemy. Job's story is not his story alone. It shows us what sometimes can happen in the spirit realm and redound to any of us anytime. It reveals the crazy things that may result from a simple dare between God and Satan--with seeming disregard to what happens to us or what we'd feel.
We mortals suffer their seeming caprices or whims (but which, for God's part, is actually far from being a spur-of-the-moment fancy but a well-thought-of plan before the world began) and often left in the dark, wondering what wrong we did and suffering the insensitivity and narrowness of even our best friends. Even Job's wife failed to understand him. Everyone thinks suffering is punishment--or at least a sign that God is not pleased with us somehow--or a failure to follow the formula to the letter.
Imagine losing your kids! Losing his businesses and properties was tragic enough, but Job losing his kids was something else. I could feel the pain. Just imagining losing my loved ones is utterly unbearable. What more in real life? And it can suddenly happen just like that--like an impulsive desire to buy something you don't need during a midnight sale. At the flick of a finger--God's finger. Without seeming cause.
And God just let it happen, no matter if Job was in desperate pain. In his confusion and mixed feelings, Job thought it was punishment for something he couldn't figure out. In his soul-searching, he let lose a lot of his inner, hidden thoughts about God--scary ones, along with questions that others may consider blasphemous, if not a profanity or sacrilege, which I also have but dare not verbalize. But in times of confused hardships they come out from my prayers and complaints.
Because that's the innocent's sole refuge when in unreasonable pain and suffering. It's either that or suicide. Fortunately, out of Godly fear, the innocent opts for bitter complaints and irreligious inquiries than self destruction. This is God's grace--choosing to endure and hold on to God than give up because of the seeming hopelessness. We rather cry out complaining in bitterness of soul. Paul showed us, incidentally, how the clay pot has no right to question the Potter, but even Jesus cried out bitterly, questioning why God forsook him on the cross, allowing such innocent suffering without providing any rescue.
Yet, there's always this surrendering spirit in us amid our almost (almost) rebellious protests against the injustice we suffer, a grace enabling us to meekly accept everything in the end after mouthing a litany of vexations. God allows it--it's not really objection or protest as the rebellious would have it. It's an outlet to release our inner groans because "we don't know how we ought to pray" anymore in these situations [Romans 8.26-27].
David, Jeremiah, Job and Jesus did it. This is what the innocent should do during suffering. Approach God at his throne and there complain, release what we honestly think and feel. Anyway, we can never lie to God and be successful at it. We cannot tell God one thing but feel quite the opposite inside. It will never work.
But the lessons we learn from suffering allow us incomparably great revelations about God, quick and rare glimpses of how things work in the spirit world. In Job, we see how it's never God versus Satan but only God alone, with Satan merely among the secondary casts in the production. Just one of the crews, probably those involved with the stage props. Yup, no such thing as God versus Satan. There's just God, period.
The war is between Satan and God's saints and angels. And even with this, God had already decided who wins. Perhaps, sometimes Satan has this wild ambition of thinking the war is between him and God (still playing with his Luciferic imagination). So we see him charging with his minions against Jesus in Revelation. But that's mere ambition. There's no God versus Satan. It's a grotesque mismatch.
Second, watch how God responded to Job's complaints. He didn't even address Job's questions and sufferings. He enumerated superhuman activities and accomplishments that clearly showed him to be GOD, but nothing about why Job suffered. Job's problem was not about God's deity or authority. It was about his suffering. No doubt Job believed God was God. But God chose to answer what Job didn't ask.
Job didn't ask, "What authority or power do you have to do this to me?" His humble inquiry was merely, "What wrong have I done?" Why didn't God just answer him, "Well, I and Satan had a dare. I bragged about you and he challenged me. And that was it. It's not your fault or anything like that."
But God didn't. And he knows better. In fact, he knows what's best. With things like this, it's best to just have faith in God's goodness and wisdom and surrender. Yeah, I have lots of complaints and questions. But often, I get different answers. Elijah complained that he alone was left of the Lord's faithful servants. But God answered him differently.
By the way, watch the video below for your health concerns.
