Thoughts on suffering and Job

There once was a man named Job who lived in the land of Hus. He had some land, some servants, some cattle, and a beautiful family. He was, indeed, blessed by the Lord due to his righteousness and devotion.

One day, Satan entered heaven and mocked God telling him that Job only praised Him due to his life being so easy and fortunate. To prove Satan wrong, God allowed him to jeopardize Job, with just one condition, to not kill him.

And suddenly everything Job had vanished; his servants, family and cattle, killed (except for his wife); his land, destroyed; his body, in the verge of breaking due to leper.

And what did Job do in that traumatizing and extreme situation?

He, without losing his faith, said something incredibly powerful:

“Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I should return to the earth. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord”.

Now that’s some guts there.

After that, some friends and even his own wife tried to comfort him at first, and, later on, to blame him for his own situation, telling him that all of this was his fault, that he must have defiled the Lord. That ultimately he deserved all the suffering he was going through.

At the end of the book, God himself speaks to Job, answering his questions about “why” did all that happened to him, and the answer, while open and subtleat first, was materful, as the mere concept of existance and creation itself is so vast that we cannot comprehend it to its ultimate consequences and implications.

In conclussion, shit happens, and it doesn’t mean, by any means, that we deserve it.

In fact, the core of the catholic religion rests upon this premise; Christ himself, the perfect Son of God suffered a horrible death, he cried blood and, at his last moments he cried to the sky:

“Father, Father, why have you abandoned me?”

So, suffering is not something that happens to punish us, rather something that’s intricately within life itself; death, decay, pain, struggle, illness, are inherit components of every single living being’s struggle for survival.

That being said, we are not obliged to have this stoic actitude towards grief and pain, like this newage gurus tell us to. Sometimes the answer for our trouble isn’t saying “fuck it, we ball” until everything figures out.

To face the dark night of the soul that is existence, we must act like Job - renounce pride, letting go of the idea of being and/or feeling special, and surrender to it. Of course while taking care of everything we can and actively trying to find a solution. You get the idea.

Only by surrender we can achieve peace in the middle of the storm; the acceptance of suffering doesn’t mean that we do not care about it nor that we do not have hardships related to it, rather that we comprehend that it’s not our fault, and that we should be kind to ourselves and seek shelter in faith and our loved ones. 

This is not a statement or an encouragement to see God as a vending machine that trades prayers for miracles or favors, by any means, but to see Him as a father that comforts his child when he’ll fell off while playing on the playground.

Maybe getting fired wasn’t that bad, maybe that health issue changed you for the better, maybe everything figured out itself after many years.

We only have to trust, and the rest, will come, as no father would give stones to his child when he asks for food.

In the very words of Job: 

"We have to accept everything that comes from the Lord; the good, and the bad". 

We are never alone, and while suffering is inevitable, in part due to the gift of free will, there is always something beyond it, a new tomorrow, waiting for us.