"Now there was a day when his sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother’s house; and a messenger came to Job and said, ‘The oxen were plowing and the donkeys feeding beside them, when the Sabeans raided them and took them away—indeed they have killed the servants with the edge of the sword; and I alone have escaped to tell you!’ While he was still speaking, another also came and said, ‘The fire of God fell from heaven and burned up the sheep and the servants, and consumed them; and I alone have escaped to tell you!’ While he was still speaking, another also came and said, ‘The Chaldeans formed three bands, raided the camels and took them away, yes, and killed the servants with the edge of the sword; and I alone have escaped to tell you!’ While he was still speaking, another also came and said, ’Your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother’s house, and suddenly a great wind came from across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell on the young people, and they are dead; and I alone have escaped to tell you!’
"So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord, and struck Job with painful boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. And he took for himself a potsherd with which to scrape himself jwhile he sat in the midst of the ashes. . . . [And Job said,] ‘Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?’ In all this Job did not sin with his lips." (NKJV)
Will God give us more than we can handle? This saying has been around for quite a while (as long as I can remember), and yet, when I truly look at life and the many painful experiences that I (and others) have gone through, I personally am coming to believe that this is a false doctrine. You see, here is something that must be true about God and the Bible: Whatever is true for one believer is true for all believers. God’s promises aren’t selective for only certain ones of His children; His promises are true for all! And so, if this saying is a true saying, then it has to be true for all believers.
Is it?
Was it true for Job?
In one day, Job lost all of his possessions, all of his livelihood, and all of his children. The only person left in his life was his wife and she told him to "Curse God and die!" (v. 9). There may be situations in life that are worse than this, but this is all pretty bad. Job was not only righteous in the sight of God, he was considered to be "the greatest of all the people of the East" (v. 3). He went from having everything to having nothing!
I certainly don’t need to repeat the litany of tragedies that strike people on a daily basis. Most of us are on social networking and between Facebook, Twitter, news media, and gofundme accounts, we know that tragedy strikes people’s lives everyday and often in such quantity to be mind boggling! Natural disasters strike. Accidents occur. Evil abounds . . . and all this leaves people with loss and pain and suffering. And sometimes, we’re the one at the center of all this mess!
Does God restrict suffering to what we can "handle"? I don’t think so. I think God restricts suffering to what He can handle in and through us. We need to understand that humans are resilient and what we think we can’t bear, we often can. We don’t die of broken hearts, from painful bodies, or from enormous embarrassment. We might like to think we might die of these things in order to escape them, but we will live out each day, one day at a time, until the Lord decides to bring us Home. And until then, it’s not about what we live through, but how we live through it that should be the focus of our lives. We will suffer. We will experience great loss. We will live with deteriorating bodies. Once we accept what life really is (compared to what movies and TV shows say it is), we can then begin to look to scripture to see what it is we should do in order to live like Job and "not sin."
Here are some ideas that may help us as we learn to navigate through a life that is far different than we would like for it to be:
Search for God with all our hearts
"For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart" (Jeremiah 29:11-13 NKJV).
The Lord’s plan for each believer is a good plan. To understand what is meant by this, we need to truly understand what God means when He talks about "good."
Romans 8:28: "And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose." The Greek word here for good is agathon or agathos. The connotation of the word is so helpful because it means something that is good in its character or constitution and is beneficial in its effect. The "good" described here is the goodness that is God, not simply goodness that comes from God, but is foundationally God Himself. And this goodness has to, by definition, be completely beneficial for us. When Jeremiah talked about God’s plan for us, it is a plan of peace (peace with God), of a future, and of a living hope, the hope of the resurrection from the dead. Everything that God does for us is with eternity in mind, to make our "forever" as wonderful as possible (and with God all things are possible). It is a future with all good things in it!
The first step to moving toward this future is to seek God with all our hearts. And the Lord tells us that this "seeking" begins with prayer. We are to call upon Him and He will listen. We are to seek Him and we will find Him!
Learn to be content in His will
When Job was notified of the loss of all his possessions and his children, this is what he prayed to the Lord:
"Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." (Job 1:21-22 NKJV).
Scripture says that Job worshiped as he said this and this passage is formatted as a prayer or even a song. Job had learned to be content in God’s will. He clearly understood that everything we have on this earth comes from God and that God gives or takes away as is best for us!
The apostle Paul wrote:
"I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through Him who gives me strength." (Philippians 4:11b-13 NIV).
Paul had the long view of life, understanding that the only important thing in this life is how we respond to it. Job understood that we come into life with nothing and we leave with nothing! It is whether or not we worship God regardless of our circumstances that’s important.
Have a "forever" view of life
1 Peter 1:3-4: "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In His great mercy He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you." (NIV)
This life isn’t about how much we can accumulate or how comfortable we can make ourselves. This life is about pressing forward, pressing forward, pressing forward in the Kingdom of God by winning souls and disciplining them, by maturing in our own faith, by continuing to seek God and His righteousness. Loss here doesn’t matter except how we choose to respond to it. Job chose to respond to loss with praise and worship and scripture tells us that he didn’t sin. The opposite of sinning is living righteously. Thus, the response that Job chose was righteous in God’s eyes.
We have lived long in a society that tells us, rather than to be thoughtful in our lives, to follow our emotions. We have become, in many instances, convinced that we are less than truthful if we don’t follow the path down which our emotions lead. But that is a fallacy. We know that Job’s emotions were heart-wrenching. In 1:20, we are told that Job tore his robe and shaved his head, the culture sign of mourning. We are told in 2:8 that he sat in the ashes, another sign of great mourning. And in 2:13 scripture says, "they saw how great his suffering was." But Job chose not to follow his emotions, but to act on what he knew to be true: that God can do nothing except pour out goodness on us. And when Job finally allowed his emotions to overcome him (beginning in chapter 3), God rebukes him (chapters 38-41). Job’s response is then this:
"I know that You can do all things; no purpose of Yours can be thwarted. . . . Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know. . . . Therefore, I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes." (Job 42:2, 3b, 6 NIV).
Job turned from responding to his emotions and instead responded to the truth of God’s character. Job learned that God has made things so wonderful that we cannot even comprehend them! And Job repented of his complaining, of his emotional outbursts. The psalmist speaks of this, I believe, in Psalm 131:
"My heart is not proud, Lord, my eyes are not haughty. I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me. But I have calmed and quieted myself." (Psalm 131: 1-2a NIV).
We have no promise that God will give us only what we can handle. We will often be given situations in which our emotions may feel out of control, situations to which we have no solutions. God hasn’t promised that the road will be paved with only those losses that we can face or only those pains which we can bear. What He has promised is that no situation is beyond His control or more than His ability to work good for us. What He has promised is that His wisdom and His will is in each step of our lives, whether in happiness or in loss. We cannot have the eternal view that God has; these are the things that are "too wonderful" for us. But we can calm and quiet ourselves. We can take our thoughts captive and turn our hearts in praise and worship to the Lord. In His presence is fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore (Psalm 116:11).
© 2015 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.
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