Reflections

 ¹⁷“Behold, how happy is the man whom God reproves,
    So do not despise the discipline of the Almighty.
 ¹⁸“For He inflicts pain, and gives relief;
    He wounds, and His hands also heal.  Job 5: 17-19

 3″Does God pervert justice?
    Or does the Almighty pervert what is right?
  ⁴“If your sons sinned against Him,
    Then He delivered them into the power of their transgression.
  ⁵“If you would seek God
    And implore the compassion of the Almighty,
  ⁶ If you are pure and upright,
    Surely now He would rouse Himself for you
    And restore your righteous estate. Job 8:3-6

Job had lost his children, his livelihood and his health.  Since, Job was suffering and sick his friends concluded that it must be a result of sin.  They encouraged Job to return to God and repent.  They thought that God would not punish the innocent, only the wicked get punished.  So Job must have done something wicked and God was correcting him.  This is wrong theology.  God does not punish us to correct us.  Even if Job had sinned God would not have destroyed Job’s life to teach him a lesson.  Too often, we attribute sickness and disease as punishment from God.  God loves us and would not use sickness and disease to  teach us a lesson.  Yes God disciplines us but not at the expense of our lives.

We know that God did see Job as a righteous man so there was no need for Job to get right with God.  Job did not lose his righteous state, he was attacked by Satan.  Satan is responsible for all that has happened to Job.  Satan did this to try and discredit Job and get Job to curse God.

The last thing Job needed from his friends was judgment.  Job was looking for comfort and they did not offer any.  Also, they thought they were defending God by explaining to Job why he was suffering and why his children died – all because of sin.

We should never judge another person’s situation when we do not understand all that is going on.  None of us know why all this happened to Job.  We are never given an explanation as to why God allowed Satan to inflict such pain on Job.  We do know it was not due to Job’s sins, because God said Job was righteous.  So let’s just mourn with those that mourn and stand in faith that God will see them through.  We are not to judge others, but to love and build them up.  This is what friends do.