Do we question the coexistence of a good God with a world of evil?

If there is a story, Job would love to tell it. He lost his health, wealth and finally, his family.

Grieving on his ash pile, covered head to toe with boils, his wife said to him, “Are you still holding on to your integrity? Curse God and die!”


Job’s wife was reacting the way every human being is tempted to react when everything we have believed in seems to make absolutely no sense in the face of what appears to be the opposite

Job reacted with an assumption that just as God is the source of comfort, so also was He the source of pain and therefore, he just had to resign himself to it.

Job had three friends come to visit him – to help him understand where God was in all this devastation.
Eiphaz: The oldest and the kindest of the three,  and he built his entire summation on a (one) dream, the foundation of his belief system was on this one dream – as real as it might have seemed to him – to share this as foundational truth to a very hurting friend was not helping the anguish that Job was experiencing.
Bildad: His thoughts seem true -- but did they answer the question of why pain occurs in our lives or are they thoughts passed from one generation to the next on acceptance and triumph in the situation?
Zophar: Youngest and rudest of the three - called Job an idiot and a windbag, adding that that God’s ways are not Job’s ways, however, that is no different than saying the devil’s ways were not Job’s ways either – not really an answer.
Job wanted to know the what and why of the difference between God’s thinking and his, not just the fact of it.


Then God shows up.  He had, in effect, listened in silence, waiting for this conversation to unfold and giving the best of minds an opportunity to try to untangle the mystery.  God’s response shocks Job – He begins to question Job. God reminded him, as a first step, that there were a thousand and one things he did not fully understand but had just taken for granted.  God proceeded to ask Job 64 questions.

This story cautions us to retain the wonder and to remember our finitude.  God basically says, “Do not assume that you only accept that which you comprehensively understand.”  God challenged Job to admit his limitation and to allow God to be God. God insists that those limitations do and must exist.

A man who was sitting under a tree that was laden with nuts. He looked up into the tree and mockingly said to God, “Somehow I do not think You are very smart. You have made a huge tree to hold small nuts and a small plant to hold big watermelons. Big tree, small nuts; small plant, big watermelons. Your sense of proportion does not seem to have much meaning.” Just then a small nut fell from the tree and hit him on his head, He paused and muttered, “Thank God that was not a watermelon.”

What God wanted him to realize was that this same God who brought such pattern and beauty into a world He had fashioned out of nothing could also bring a pattern and beauty out of Job’s brokeness.