In my continuing journey of reading through the Bible, I’ve spent the last month in Job. I’ve mostly read from The Message paraphrase, which has greatly helped my understanding of the book. Today, I read the last section, which contains God’s response to Job and his three buddies.

A few observations:

While reading Job, I’ve also been reading about Joseph, the son of Jacob, as I prepare my sermon for Sunday. Both men experience some bad stuff. Really bad stuff. Job loses all his children and wealth in one day. Joseph is betrayed by his brothers, falsely accused of sexual assault and wrongly imprisoned for years.

I don’t know which would be worse, but I know I don’t want to experience anything close to what these men went through. Hopefully, I won’t have to. Hopefully, you won’t either.

We will experience pain and suffering though. It’s inevitable, inescapable and unavoidable. And that’s what I wish someone had taught me 27 years ago when I first placed my faith in Christ. Somehow over the years I’d gotten it in my head that obedience resulted in blessing…always. And somehow I thought if I experienced pain and suffering that God wasn’t working, was being cruel or was just simply uncaring.

Joseph obeyed. Somehow, as a good looking teenage guy, he resisted being seduced by his boss’s wife. A number of times. Now I’m just assuming that the wife of a high ranking Egyptian government official is hot. I could be wrong, but I don’t think so. And yet Joseph did not sin.

What did it get him? The woman he resisted accused him of trying to sexually assault her and he was thrown in prison. Not exactly a blessing, huh? You can read this post to get the full story.

Now back to Job. He obeyed, too. “This man was blameless and upright; he feard God and shunned evil.” God even points out to Satan what a great guy Job is.

What did it get him? The loss of his children, his wealth and his health. He went from being respected to being ridiculed. One minute (literally) life was great and the next it was unspeakably painful.

“In all this, Job did not sin in what he said.” After losing everything, Job still doesn’t sin. He doesn’t accuse God of wrong-doing. That is until his friends show up. At first, they seem like good guys. They’re silent. They see Job’s tremendous pain and say nothing. For a whole week. Finally, Job’s pain overflows and he shares what’s in his heart.

The friends turn out to be arrogant idiots and make the classic mistake of talking too much and assuming Job’s sin has brought this on. They go on and on, explaining how God works and rebuking Job for whatever sin he’s committed that unleashed God’s discipline.

What if Job’s friends had been mature enough to let Job vent for awhile? What if they’d had enough compassion to just listen? What if they hadn’t been so arrogant to think it was their role to defend God by arguing with a man in as much pain as Job was?

Joseph was imprisoned and didn’t have to endure any friends explaining how he must have sinned to land himself in prison and he was able to see God’s hand in everything that happened to him.

Job didn’t have it so easy. He had friends around. Friends who lacked compassion and didn’t truly understand how God works.

Any lessons here for us?

Remember, you’re not immune from suffering and it doesn’t mean God is angry or has forgotten you. It doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve somehow brought this on yourself. God is always good, always faithful, always at work…in the good times and the bad.

When a friend is suffering, sometimes the best thing is to be silent and just listen. Let them vent. It’s not your role to discover their hidden sin or defend God’s actions. When the time is right, graciously remind them of God’s love and compassion. The time will come later when you can point them to passages like Genesis 37-50 and the book of Job.

The worst thing we can do is to perpetuate the false teaching that blessing will always follow obedience and that suffering is always the result of sin.

Is it better to obey then? Of course, but our obedience is never a guarantee of immediate, earthly blessings.