It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by human suffering. It surrounds us. When a Christian suffers, I take comfort in knowing God has allowed it for a reason, even when we cannot see that reason. But when I hear of someone who may not know the Lord going through a fiery trial, my heart breaks.
I recently read about a man in New Zealand who lost his wife and daughter to cancer just ten days apart. He said he cannot return to their old home because it holds too many memories. We can scarcely imagine the weight of his grief.
I’ve prayed for him, and I’ve wondered what I would say if I could sit with him. I hope I would begin by listening. In time, perhaps I would encourage him to read the Book of Job.
It’s a long book, yet it speaks to anyone who has asked why God allows suffering. Job lost his children, his possessions, and his health. His friends misunderstood him, and his wife offered him little comfort. Yet he refused to let go of God.
“When a Christian suffers, I take comfort in knowing God has allowed it for a reason, even when we cannot see that reason. But when I hear of someone who may not know the Lord going through a fiery trial, my heart breaks.”
That doesn’t mean his faith never trembled. Job wanted an audience with God. He wanted to know why all this had happened to him. And God did speak—but not as Job expected. Instead of explaining his suffering, God asked questions that revealed how little Job could see of all that God knows and does.
Job was humbled. He put his hand over his mouth. Then he said, “I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:5–6).
A glimpse of God’s holiness changed Job. It did not make his losses seem small, nor did it mean his questions were painless. But it gave him reason to trust the One he could not fully understand.
Jesus spoke of a house built on rock that stood firm when the storm came. Suffering will come to each of us. My prayer for this grieving man is that he will come to know the Lord who can hold him through it—and that, even in the darkness, he might one day say with Job:
“Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.” —Job 13:15
