True for You, But Not for Me

Suffering is something that hurts our hearts, regardless of the magnitude of it. As humans, we all suffer and Scripture doesn’t stay silent about suffering. In fact, the book of Job begs the questions: Does God cause or allow suffering? What is God’s role? And, why do we suffer? Yet (spoiler alert), we don’t get a clear answer to the “why” in the book of Job. We need to look at the whole of Scripture to form a robust theology of suffering in order to help us understand. We, as a church, believe in God’s power and God’s healing, but we also know that one of the surest things promised in Scripture is that in this world we will have trouble (John 16:33). So where does that leave us? What does that say about God and His trustworthiness? How can we trust in God’s sovereignty through all of life’s trials? While Job doesn’t give us the answers to the big question of “why?” it begins to answer the “how”: We can continue to trust God and walk through suffering with wisdom, humility, and worship. One of the most compelling aspects of Scripture is how it weaves together in such an intentional way. While we look at what the book of Job in the Old Testament has to say, we will also get to see how the New Testament book of James tackles the theme of suffering and our response. All of God’s inspired Word gives us a framework through which we learn how to trust God even, and especially, through suffering.