God And Job And Suffering: All Is Well That Ends Well

We hear a lot about God and Job's sufferings. The book of Job has 42 chapters and some 99% of the verses talk about Job's sufferings. However nobody knows how long Job suffered and some interpreters think it was a relatively short time. Some think Job suffered for a few months and others think Job suffered only for days.

To the best of my knowledge all the events in the book of Job could have occurred within 30 days. If so, then Job suffered a very short time.

But here is even better news: After Job suffered and endured his testing, God, in His Mercy and Grace gave Job MORE than he had before he was tested, and then God gave Job 140 years of the good life.

Its reasonable to believe {based on the narrative in Job 42} they were a happy and blessed 140 years.

"The Lord blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the former part." Job 42:12

"After this, Job lived a hundred and forty years; he saw his children and their children to the fourth generation. And so Job died, an old man and full of years." Job 42:16-17

Bildad correctly predicted the happy restoration of Job when he said: "He {God} will yet fill your mouth with laughter and your lips with shouts of joy." Job 8:12

So God's Mercy and Grace restored Job and he had MORE blessings than he previously enjoyed and then God gave Job 140 happy good years. And even more important than that, God gave Job eternal life in Heaven. Job was an Old Testament believer that reaped the benefits of the blessing of John 3:16 which says that God loved the world and gave His one and only Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.

God restored Job and God has a Plan to restore the world. God has a Plan to fix the world that men have messed up. What kind of Plan is it? The Cross. What kind of Person is God? The kind of Person that will die on a Cross because He loves the world and desires to restore it. So what kind of Person is God? The kind of Person that leads from the front, where the pain is.

So God's Mercy and Grace restored Job and he had MORE blessings than he previously enjoyed and then God gave Job 140 happy good years.

Too bad, though, about all of Job's original children - you know: The ones who died after God sent a "great wind," destroying the house they were in - just to "test" Job's faith. They don't get "restored." A house collapses on them and they stay dead - no additional blessings than they had previously enjoyed, no additional "happy, good years."

Regards,

Ask anybody who has lost a child. You never really "get over it." The Lord can lead you out of grief, but the feeling of loss may still be there. C.S. Lewis, in his book called A Grief Observed, that he wrote when dealing with the death of his wife says it best.

"Getting over it so soon? But the words are ambiguous. To say the patient is getting over it after an operation for appendicitis is one thing; after he's had his leg off it is quite another. After that operation either the wounded stump heals or the man dies.

If it heals, the fierce, continuous pain will stop. Presently he'll get back his strength and be able to stump about on his wooden leg. He has 'got over it.' But he will probably have recurrent pains in the stump all his life, and perhaps pretty bad ones; and he will always be a one-legged man.

There will be hardly any moment when he forgets it. Bathing, dressing, sitting down and getting up again, even lying in bed, will all be different. His whole way of life will be changed. All sorts of pleasures and activities that he once took for granted will have to be simply written off. Duties too. At present I am learning to get about on crutches. Perhaps I shall presently be given a wooden leg. But I shall never be a biped again. "

I, personally, don't like the implication that "pain" or "suffering" always has an end, and we recover in a certain amount of time, or in our lives. That's just not true in the lives of many Christians who have progressive diseases like a neurological disease, ALS, for instance, or cancer, etc. Their suffering is not ended in this life.

There is a release, but it won't be this side of heaven.

These verses say it best. It's the end of the "by faith" heroes chapter in Hebrews 11 where one after another were delivered by faith and whose lives were saved:

Hebrews 11:

36 And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment:

37 They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented;

38 (Of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth. 39 And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise:

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