In his book
Job: A Man of Heroic Endurance, Charles R. Swindoll examines what Job’s sufferings can teach us about humanity and faith. In Scripture, Job is the central figure in the Book of Job, which focuses on God’s justice during difficult times, and how God guides us through times of suffering. Ultimately, Job endures many trials and often feels abandoned by God. However, God never actually abandons Job.
Swindoll's book teaches readers how to embrace God’s challenges. Using Job as an example, he explains that we find answers to our questions in unexpected places — and God doesn’t always give us the answers we expect. Epitomizing strength, endurance, and patience, we can all learn from Job’s life story.
Heroes come in all forms. Job doesn’t stand idly by watching his life crash down around him. He consciously endures the trials God throws at him. Battening down and enduring hardships are heroic qualities. Life is unavoidably difficult. What separates heroes from the rest of us is how they deal with those difficulties. Just as Job learns the most about himself when he is suffering, we learn through our mistakes and disappointments. We rarely learn anything about our spirituality or ourselves when life is easy. Challenges make heroes of us.
Job suffers in the way we all suffer; his life is terribly unfair. Many can relate to his problems: he loses his family, his property, and his health, and his life is one catastrophe after another. However, because these catastrophes are timeless, Job speaks to everyone regardless of what era they live in. Job represents humanity. One of Job’s most poignant moments is when he loses all ten of his children at the same time. Standing over their graves, wondering what to do with his life, his wife tells him to renounce God, to give up and let his grief consume him, the way it consumes her. Job, however, refuses to give in. He simply vocalizes his faith in God. It doesn’t matter how God treats Job — Job never strays from the path.
Job suffers every insult imaginable. His friends turn on him; covered in agonizing welts and sores, everyone says he is to blame for his own misfortune. Job asks God for guidance, but God never answers him. Somehow, through this silence, Job stays true to God, and God finally rewards him. Yet, God’s rewards are never certain, and it takes an incredible amount of trust by Job to believe in Him.
God doesn’t bless Job with any special powers to help him endure what life throws at him. All Job has is his humanity, and this is what saves him. This is comforting; we are all capable of enduring life’s trials.
Gotta Roll,
Paul J. Staso
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