"I loathe my life;I will give free utterance to my complaint;
I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.
I will say to God, Do not condemn me;
let me know why you contend against me.
Does it seem good to you to oppress,
to despise the work of your hands
and favor the designs of the wicked?”
The book of Job is kind the of go-to book for people in the midst of trials. But I think that Job presses on the major difficulty we all have underneath our trials: Why?
In the flesh, “just because” isn’t a satisfying answer. And some wager between God and the Devil seems even less settling. I think we would like to find comfort in understanding our plight. But I suspect that it’s an unreasonable request. As the book of Job affirms over and over again, God is not like us. He doesn’t think like us. He doesn’t operate like us. The difficulty we experience in this life is not something we’re probably going to get to understand. Maybe ever.
So, while the story of Job is often used to comfort the distressed, I think the Gospel, in all of its simplicity, should really go much farther in achieving that goal.

