Day 5: Job 6-9

A bit late!

After Job cries out about all that God has taken away from him unfairly, one of Job's friends, Bildad the Shuhite, says these words:
 
"Can papyrus grow tall where there is no marsh?
    Can reeds thrive without water?
¹² While still growing and uncut,
    they wither more quickly than grass.
¹³ Such is the destiny of all who forget God;
    so perishes the hope of the godless.
¹⁴ What they trust in is fragile;
    what they rely on is a spider’s web.
¹⁵ They lean on the web, but it gives way;
    they cling to it, but it does not hold.
¹⁶ They are like a well-watered plant in the sunshine,
    spreading its shoots over the garden;
¹⁷ it entwines its roots around a pile of rocks
    and looks for a place among the stones.
¹⁸ But when it is torn from its spot,
    that place disowns it and says, ‘I never saw you.’
¹⁹ Surely its life withers away,
    and from the soil other plants grow."

Why do people follow God?  It doesn't necessarily mean that they will have a nice and pleasant life all the time.  And when the bad arrives, it is not for certain that it will not stay indefinitely.

So why follow God? Why should Job follow God if he has everything taken away from him.  Not only was Job affected, but his family and his servants were affected.  They had their lives taken away from them.

Why is human life made to be a test if God knows how each and every person will react?

I have two main thoughts provoked by these questions.
1.  It takes a man of immense humility, a man/woman that longs after God, to even try to comprehend why God does the things He does.
     At first, Job is faithful in his reactions to God when he has his money and his health taken away.  Then, God allows the devil to take Job's family.  There is only so much even the most faithful man can take.  Before long, Job breaks down and begins to resent God.  He says he is "blameless" in Job 9:21, but is that really true?  Job has done nothing in his life to anger or dissatisfy God himself, but he descended from a line of sin.  Job, as everyone else in the world, is a son of Adam.  And no matter what he does, he will never be able to escape the punishment that Adam bestowed upon future generations.  So... just because my great-great-great-great x infinity grandmother and grandfather did something wrong, I have to pay for it?  The instinctive reaction is to say, THAT'S NOT FAIR.  And sometimes, it's hard to think otherwise.  But life in this world isn't meant to be a gift anymore.  Earth was always Satan's domain, and Adam and Eve failed the first test of many.  Right after sin entered the first humans, this world and its offerings became a mere journey-- a pitstop.  If humans had all the reason they needed to love the world, why would they have any incentive to move to heaven?  But it says in the Bible that no man can do anything good to earn his way to heaven, and this is truth.  The only way to reach heaven is to love and accept God and His ways.  As for Job, I have to read the upcoming chapters to see if he changes his perspective.  But in my mind, God already accepted Job into heaven.  God doesn't give anyone more than they can handle... and God knew how Job was after His own heart from the beginning.

2.  Life is a test for the sake of humans, and not the sake of God.
    I've already stated that God loves us so much, and all equally.  God loves everyone unconditionally, and it's not as if he doesn't feel pain when we feel pain.  Now, think about your parent(s).  Your parents are not capable of unconditional love.  That is a fact.  They are very capable of showing nearly-perfect love, but they could never love their sons and daughters as much as God loves us.  So... imagine the pain your parents feel when they have to ground you for staying out past midnight, or give you a scolding for earning an F on your test.  Why do they not want you to stay out so late?  Maybe it's to keep you safe.  Or to make sure that you'll be able to wake up rested in the morning.  Or maybe they want to spend more time for you.  But you don't care-- all you care is that you're grounded.  Your parents do not take pleasure from grounding you, but they do it for your own good, and if not now, at least in the future you'll recognize that it hurts them to do something that seems like punishment for you.  In the same way, God hurts when bad things happen to his children.  And I imagine that because He loves us more than anyone, that God hurts more than our parents when we struggle.  He knows and feels with us... all of our love, thoughts, feelings, pains.  God is all-knowing, and if it's not for the best of each individual, what God does and allows to happen is for the best of the world.  To accept this is to understand that the world doesn't revolve around us, or the "I" we always have in mind.  But God says to lay the burden on Him.  So if and whenever you struggle, try to pray for God to help you with it.  God isn't just a looker... He can help give you peace, if not help solve the problem altogether.

P.S. It's better to suffer with God now than to suffer for eternity without God.