09/24/2021
WHY DO GOOD PEOPLE SUFFER?
• WHY DO PEOPLE WHO HAVE EVERY ADVANTAGE OF FAMILY, WEALTH, EDUCATION, AND ALL THE MATERIAL BENEFITS OF LIFE SQUANDER THE GIFTS IN SELF -SERVING AND RIOTIST HEDONISM?
• WHY DO SOME PEOPLE WHO ARE BORN WITH NOTHING SUCCEED WHERE THE AFFLUENT FAIL?
THE BOOK OF JOB IN THE BIBLE
The Book of Job in the Old Testament addresses these issues.
Job is one of the oldest books of the Bible, it may even predate Moses 4000 years ago. Job may have been an Arab or an Israelite. No one knows. His story dwells on suffering in this world, suffering of the good and the bad. Job is good. Job is righteous. He prays to God every day. He is just and upright. He has sons and daughters, wealth in cattle, sheep and gold. He lacks nothing.
Job has worries because his sons and daughters are engaged in riotous living. They eat and drink. They are party animals. They ignore respect for God and his righteousness. Job is worried and each day he prays for them.
One must remember that this story was written long before we had a Bible or codified moral and ethical written guidelines, but we must remember that every soul is born with an innate sense of right and wrong, good and evil, justice and injustice, mercy and cruelty. Each soul has a sense of a force, a power, an energy beyond themselves. Religious people call this sense of a greater power beyond self: “God”.
It can be said that we have an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other. Human existence is fraught with a life long struggle between the two forces in human nature, one good, the other corrupt. And, no person is free from this tension between good and evil.
Wise men and women strive to cultivate the goodness in their soul and suppress the evil. Religious people from the Abrahamic religion have a moral and ethical sense derived from the literature of those religions. They realize that their “long-term” self interest lies in cultivating the good, suppressing the bad and deferring immediate pleasures along with moderation in all their behaviors. That takes discipline and invoking the Lord to help sustain them. The spiritual lazy people deny the good angel and drift toward what desires and temptations give them the most immediate pleasures and satisfactions.
The issue with Job is that most people would assume that because he is righteous, he would be defended and protected by the Holy Lord God. BUT THAT DID NOT HAPPEN! All the good material things that hedged his life with pleasures and comforts were destroyed. His corrupt children were killed. Wars and thieves plundered his wealth until he was in abject poverty. But that was not enough to shake his faith. He still had his health and his wife, but even his health was taken from him.
THE ISSUE BECAME: “WHY DO BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO GOOD PEOPLE?”
Even Job’s friends turned against him. Job was ready to die for his misery was too much. His wife told him to renounce God, his Creator and die. He was alone in his sorrows and misery. He was without hope. There was none to console him. He was like Jesus on the cross forsaken by all except his mother, several women, and the Apostle John as he cried out, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
WE HAVE ALL SUFFERED WHETHER RIGHTEOUS OR UN RIGHTEOUS-
Two weeks ago, a young woman of thirty died from a substance abuse. She was young. She had the benefits of a classical education, a comfortable home and vehicles, gifts of her parents. She lacked nothing. She was gorgeous. She had what millions of other young women could only dream about. But she was bent on the titillations of the short-term pleasures of drink, drugs, parties, and all the attendant salacious behaviors. Her parents, like Job before all his catastrophes, prayed earnestly for her salvation and a return to the values that insure a long and productive life. But like so many parents who have lost children, especially to the forces of corruption and evil, the parent’s faith was shaken to the core. “We prayed to God for her life and salvation and our earnest prayers were not answered. “Why God? Why?”
MY GOOD CHAPLAIN
In contrast to a life lived in short term and nefarious pleasures, my Episcopal Chaplain, a man of about thirty-five years of age was a man of faith and solid Christian values. He guided the young soldiers in righteousness even though he was often ignored. He was a man of courage and did not flinch from his duties as a Christian soldier ministering to the young men in the trenches, bunkers, and foxholes surrounded by slain enemy soldiers. Unlike peace-time clergy, he ministered to all without regard to their denomination or no denomination. After all, they were all part of God’s children as he saw his dangerous ministry. He carried no weapon except the word of God in hope and faith. As he served his soldiers in combat, he was soon killed in enemy artillery fire,
Two separate examples of life lived in service to God and man and a life lived in seeking all the nefarious short-term pleasures.
Like Job, it is a difficult understanding as the righteous suffer with the same fate as the rest of mankind. In adversity, it is easy to lose your faith and challenge God.
JOB’S PERPLEXITY YET FAITHFULNESS
Despite all Job’s suffering his proclamations are astounding: “What is man that thou art mindful of him?" “Though thou slay me, yet will I trust in Him”. “Blessed be the name of the Lord.” “ I know that my Redeemer liveth and He shall stand at the latter days upon the earth.”
JOB IS A GOOD BOOK TO READ TO UNDERSTAND SUFFERING IN THIS LIFE. NO ONE IS IMMUNED FROM THE SUFFERING, CHALLENGES AND BLESSINGS IN THIS MORTAL LIFE – "OUR REDEEMER LIVETH."
