Painful trials have a way of testing our coping strategies. The Book of Job introduces a man whose suffering included unimaginable financial devastation, unrelenting physical pain, and the tragic loss of his children. His story helps us to see the limitations of some of our usual responses and gives us more effective means of relief.
1. Sometimes friends can do more harm than good
As tragedy hits Job, three friends “made an appointment together to come to show him sympathy and comfort him” (Job 2:11). It feels at first as if they will be just what he needs. Unfortunately, they aren’t. As they begin to speak into his life and try to interpret what’s happening to him, it’s clear that they are just adding to his pain. At one point, Job calls for them to stop: “I have heard many such things; miserable comforters are you all” (Job 16:2).
It seems that Job’s friends are given to us as a warning. Well-meaning people can say some insensitive and hurtful things in times of grief – particularly if they haven’t suffered themselves (2 Corinthians 1:4).
2. Hiding under your covers can make things worse
If you’re struggling with your circumstances and hurt by your friends, the temptation is to withdraw altogether. Job tried this, too. At one point, he said, “My bed will comfort me, my couch will ease my complaint” (Job 7:13). It didn’t. His problems were only amplified under the covers. The way Max Lucado put it was, “The cave has no answers.” Hiding and hoping for the storm to pass only gives it more power over us.
3. Adding regret to your pain steals from your comfort
As his suffering intensified, Job was helped by reminding himself of the big picture. He would eventually be remembered for the decisions he had made and the life he lived despite his circumstances. He encouraged himself that a life of faithfulness is its own comfort. In Job 6:10, he said, “This would be my comfort; I would even exult in pain unsparing, for I have not denied the words of the Holy One.” When the heat is turned up, it’s easy to turn to temptation, but Job realized that would only add regret to his pain. He purposed to glorify God.
4. God’s truth brings comfort in suffering
The physical losses in Job’s case were made so much harder by the emotional anguish he experienced. His friends condemned him with a steady barrage of accusations that weren’t true. At one point, he says to them, “How then will you comfort me with empty nothings? There is nothing left of your answers but falsehood” (Job 21:34). While Job’s friends may have been unique, most people struggle with confusing or condemning thoughts of one form or another when hard times hit. Job had an incomplete picture of God, but focusing on what he knew and understood of God’s truth gave him hope and counteracted the lies that he kept hearing (Job 16:19; 23:10; 19:25-27). When we suffer, we need to hear God’s truth more than ever.
5. Repentance unlocks comfort in our pain
When you’re reading a book of the Bible and see a word repeated a number of times, it’s worth checking the occurrences of that word in a concordance or app that allows you to search it. Often the biblical authors would point to a theme they were developing by using repetition.
Comfort is one of the keywords in Job’s story. In Job 42:6, however, the underlying Hebrew word is translated with a different word – “repent.” After hearing God speak out of the whirlwind, Job says, “Therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” That one Hebrew word can include the sense of either comfort, repentance, or both. Here both are probably intended.
God’s words have brought clarity and self-awareness to Job that he didn’t have before, and so it’s correct to say that he repented. But that repentance also brought great comfort to Job. He was reoriented to God’s truth, and it built his hope, undid the lies, and released him from the confusion he struggled with. This is the turning point in Job’s healing.
When life is difficult, we think that comfort will only come in gentle thoughts and quiet relief. Often, what we most need is an encounter with God. We need to see Him more clearly and trust Him more deeply. We need to better understand His purposes and see where we’ve lost sight of them. This ultimately brings comfort to a true believer.
6. God will eventually bring His people the comfort they long for
Job found relief in an encounter with God while he was still on the ash heap. But that wasn’t the only comfort he got. Job’s story ends with his losses restored and his life renewed. The isolation he felt from his unsympathetic friends was replaced by reconciliation (Job 42:8) and reunion. Job 42:11 says, “Then came to him all his brothers and sisters and all who had known him before, and ate bread with him in his house. And they showed him sympathy and comforted him for all the evil that the LORD had brought upon him. And each of them gave him a piece of money and a ring of gold.”
This is the comfort that Job had been seeking since he first experienced his tragedy. It comes to him now only after he’s learned to find comfort in other places. It’s given to us here to encourage us that a day is coming for all of God’s people when we will meet God and experience the comfort we so desperately long for. That hope can comfort us even as we wait for it to be realized.
Reading a single keyword, in this case, “comfort,” across an entire book can give us a view that no single chapter or verse can provide. Learn to look for repetition as you read, and may you find the comfort you need as you look to God today.
In awe of Him,
Paul
Interested in learning more about the Book of Job?
Click here for the sermon series: When Tragedy Strikes
