The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.
Carol couldn’t understand why it was happening all at once. As if work wasn’t bad enough, her daughter fractured her foot in school, and she herself came down with a severe infection. What did I do to deserve this? Carol wondered. All she could do was ask God for strength.
Job didn’t know why calamity had hit him so hard either—pain and loss far greater than what Carol experienced. There’s no indication he was aware of the cosmic battle for his soul. Satan wanted to test Job’s faith, claiming he’d turn from God if he lost everything (Job 1:6-12). When disaster struck, Job’s friends insisted he was being punished for his sins. That wasn’t why, but he must have wondered, Why me? What he didn’t know was that God had allowed it to happen.
Job’s story offers a powerful lesson about suffering and about faith. We may try to discover the reason behind our pain, but perhaps there’s a bigger story behind the scenes that we won’t understand in our lifetime.
Like Job, we can hold on to what we do know: God is in full control. It’s not an easy thing to say, but in the midst of his pain, Job kept looking to God and trusting in His sovereignty: “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised” (v. 21). May we too keep trusting in God no matter what happens—and even when we don’t understand.
By Leslie Koh
