Never Forsaken (Week 2)

​​I can’t say that I ever experienced real suffering before the age of 15. I’m sure, as a child, I believed I was suffering— when my brothers left me out of an activity, when I had to do chores, or I was wrongly reprimanded in class.
 
Overall, though, everything in my life was pretty good. That is, until suddenly it wasn’t.
 
When I was 15, my family fell apart and, with it, my general belief that God was good and He was for me. I was left with a lot of questions and not a lot of great advice, much like our friend, Job, in this week’s reading.

In two short chapters we watch Job’s life fall apart— his family, his wealth, and his health. Job wrestled to reconcile God’s justice with his own personal suffering, because it’s clear he had done nothing wrong. We read in Job 1:8 that Job was “a man of perfect integrity, who [feared] God.” Job’s story challenges Western ideas that are basically “Christian karma”— that if we’re good, God will be good to us, and if we’re experiencing suffering it’s because of something wrong we did.
 
The mental anguish revealed in the subsequent dialogue is not grief over loss of Job’s possessions, rather grief over his perceived abandonment by God. The ironic thing is, in his wrestling, Job was closer to Yahweh than He had ever been before.
 
The hard truth is God allows suffering for His purposes. We see no better example of this than in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus— the Suffering Servant. Jesus told his disciples about the necessary suffering He would endure for our ultimate good yet, in their finite minds, they could not grasp the big picture. However, Jesus willingly took the cup of the Father’s wrath to satisfy the merited penalty for our sins. There on the cross, He experienced the unimaginable grief of actual abandonment, as His holy Father turned His back on Him.
 
Jesus was forsaken by God so you and I wouldn’t have to be. Even on our darkest days, we have this hope: nothing “will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:39).
 
Friend, what suffering are you enduring right now? A heath diagnosis? A financial crisis? The death of a loved one or loss of a relationship? Like Job, are you sitting in the dust of despair?
 
In our finite minds, we cannot grasp the big picture of what God is doing. Regardless, we can choose to rest in the truth that He is unchanging and unfailing.
 
God is still good.
God is still present.
God is still working for your good and His glory in every situation.
 
Looking back I can see that God was with me, even in the ashes of my parents’ divorce. He has been with me through many more suffering since, and He will be with me in the sufferings to come. The same is true for you— He never leaves us nor forsakes us. And, unlike Job’s condemning friends, He comforts us in all our troubles (2 Corinthians 1:3).
 
God does not despise our wrestling, but in the end He desires our trust. We won’t always understand God’s ways, but we can willingly submit like Jesus did— saying, “Not my will, but yours be done.”
 

Memory verse: “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:38-39 NIV

About the Author

Hi, I’m Katie Gibson! My incredible husband Craig and I have been married for 13 years and live in North Atlanta with our three children, ages 13, 11, and 7. I'm a writer, author, and speaker. My favorite things include black coffee, small group, date nights, and the Atlanta Braves. I love using the power of story and the unchanging truth of the Word of God to encourage women to grow in their faith. Connect with Katie at www.katiegibsonwrites.com

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