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| MISSING THE POINT Curse God and die! (Job 2:9) Job's wife suffered almost as much as Job did. Except for her health, she too lost everything -- family, home, possessions. Her attitude and response exactly matched the one Satan had set out to evoke from Job -- cursing God. How ironic that Satan achieved his goal in Job's sole surviving companion and not in Job himself. Did Job's wife realize that she had surrendered to Satan's manipulative scheme? Did she feel her loss so greatly that she didn't care that she was wrong? Or did she respond to her calamity merely in a fit of emotion, which later passed, taking her bitterness with it? We don't know the answer to any of those questions. All we know is that she responded just as most people would have under the circumstances -- she got angry with God and insisted that Job do the same. Most normal, commonsense people would have responded that way. Most people would have suggested the same thing. Most people would have done exactly as she did -- missing the point, just as Job told her. Every time we suffer, we also undergo a test of faith. Is God really in control? Is there any reason for this? Does any of this make any sense? If we let emotion take over, as Job's wife did, then we will indeed curse God. And we'll be just like her: bitter, angry, wrong. Suffering tests our faith in God. |