Does God Want Me To Suffer?
Recently I read through the Book of Job from the Bible. One can’t help but read this book and finish it with a lot of questions. In the beginning there is a guy named Job, who is a righteous man and honors God with his life; he has done nothing specifically to deserve any sort of suffering. Yet sure enough, he does suffer a lot… One day God and Satan talk and Satan basically makes the argument that the only reason Job honors God is because God protects him. God then allows Satan to put Job through trials to prove Satan wrong. Satan attacks hard… in one day Job loses almost everything he has yet he still proclaims “The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.”
My Story
I don’t know about you, but the book of Job really resonates with me. By worldly standards I’m not a bad guy. I’ve not had any problems with the police, drugs, crime, and overall most people would probably label me as a decent guy. That doesn’t mean I am perfect or sinless, or even as righteous as Job; but compared to a lot of other people, I seem to be doing alright.
Yet even with that, I can’t help but notice that I have faced more health hardships and suffering than a lot of people my age. When I was in high school I loved tennis, but in my senior year I dislocated my shoulder and have never been able to play at the same caliber since. In college I was a percussion major and injured my wrist, and I still have problems with it when I drum a lot. Then I got sick with stomach issues and had to take a semester off from college. I found out I was gluten intolerant and then later lactose intolerant, and my diet got really restricted and complicated to the point that it is hard to trust anyone to provide food for me without getting me sick.
Not only that, but I have continued to have digestive problems for 10 years since then. I’ve had numerous medical tests and spent a ton of money on medical bills. I have even had three surgical procedures to remove my gallbladder, my appendix, and to do a biopsy of my liver. These are only a few of the details… I could go on and on, but I’ll save you from that. So a question that I have struggled with throughout this is, Does God Want Me To Suffer? Like I mentioned earlier, I don’t think I have done anything specifically heinous to deserve this suffering more than some of the terrible people in the world that have never had to deal with this kind of suffering. So why do I suffer?
What Job Teaches Us
There are a few things that the Book of Job teaches us that I think can relate to my situation and potentially to yours with whatever you might be going through. In the Book of Job, we never see God actually cause Job’s suffering. We see him allow it, but he never actually lifts his hand against Job. That does not mean that God can’t do that, because there are definitely biblical examples of God bringing judgement to people who deserve it. But from Job, we can see that suffering is not always because of God’s judgement.
Throughout the Book of Job, Job’s friends come to him and attempt to “comfort him.” Their “comforting” basically ends up being them pointing fingers at Job saying that maybe he isn’t as righteous as they had thought, so he needs to repent. They concluded that if Job was suffering like that, God must have been punishing him for something he did. But that was not the case according to the story. For me, that has been one of my biggest faith hurdles. What did I do to deserve the suffering I have experienced? After wrestling with it for years, I finally came to the conclusion that I didn’t do anything specific to deserve it. We live in a fallen, broken world. From the day we are born, we are dying; some just experience the reality of mortality sooner than others.
Encourage People
So today I just want to encourage you to be encouragers, not discouragers. People who are suffering don’t need friends like Job saying things like “everything happens for a reason” or trying to make them feel like karma is to blame. It is true that sometimes good things come out of suffering and there are scripture passages that back that up, but that’s not what someone needs to hear when they are going through suffering. In times of suffering, many people just need someone to listen and pray for them. Sometimes we do get what we deserve, but not always. Sometimes bad people live life without suffering and good people suffer. I can’t fully make sense of it, but I know at the root, it is because we live in a messed up sin filled world.
For those who are followers of Jesus, we have hope that one day everything will be made right. Those who have lived evil lives will be judged, and the righteous who have suffered will be glorified and purified through their trials; Jesus will make all things right in the end. After all, Jesus knows a thing or two about suffering. If anyone suffered undeservedly, it was him. He was the perfect sinless man who died a criminal’s death on a cross so that humanity could be reconciled back to God; he knows what you are going through and is willing to walk with you through it. Pray to him and trust him (Proverbs 3:5-6).
Also, feel free to contact me if you are going through something. I write posts like this because I know what it’s like to suffer, and I want to help people walk through it if I can. For more on how to have hope during times of suffering, see previous post Where Do You Find Hope When Things Go Wrong?
