I read through the Bible each year using the One Year Bible. I’ve done this for many years and find that even though I read the same things, the Lord always speaks to me in different ways each time.

I recently finished reading the book of Job. I’ll be honest…it’s not my favorite book of the Bible. The set up of the storyline is painful, the main character’s struggle to understand God’s dealings and permissions is distressing, and the fact that the reader—in this case, me—knows that God is not the one “making” all of the bad stuff happen to Job, but Job doesn’t…well it’s just hard to read.

One particularly hard installment of reading has our hero, Job, surrounded by the only people who will talk to him in his time of confusion and angst—his friends. They got it, as most friends do. Life was overwhelmingly dismal for their previously rich, happy, respected, honored and blessed friend. Job had been stricken in the most egregious way…as a matter of, in every way. It seemed like every precious thing has been killed, stolen or destroyed.   

As the group of men sat around Job, they began to inquire of what he had done to end up in his current state. As the discussion picked up momentum, they began to accuse their friend of secretly doing wrong. They asserted that the reason Job had suffered so greatly was because God was judging him in his secret sin.

Well, now how d’ya like that?! I wonder how much actual time these friends had spent with Job prior to his dark night of the soul? Or did they just show up on the scene to offer their advice just then? To accuse the man of secretly sinning in his dealings with his fellow man seems to be the embodiment of the phrases “to add insult to injury” and “who needs enemies when I’ve got friends like you”.

How easy it is for us—all of us--to fit every incident of human suffering in the “He loves me, He loves me not” columns. Why do we do that? Maybe we’re trying to simplify something that is just not simple. There is no simple answer to the why’s of suffering. We aren’t even called, nor are we qualified, to answer that “why”.

My take away from this part of Job’s story is this: we’re all capable of harshly judging those around us, when bad things happen to them. Perhaps the best thing we can do is NOT to offer our opinion about why those bad things may be taking place. Perhaps the best thing we can do is to ask God to show them His mercy and then be the hands and feet that bring that mercy. When we ourselves are suffering, whether of our own making or not of our own making, we don’t want or need blame placers. We need mercy-ers.

Micah 6:8 says, “He has shown you, o man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy [emphasis mine], and to walk humbly with your God?” (NKJV). We need to SHOW mercy, we need to GIVE mercy and we need to RECEIVE mercy. 

- Pastor Robie Ecklund