Different Attempted Explanations

 • Suffering involves the idea of cause and effect. If you are suffering, there must be a reason for it. You reap what you sow. The good prosper; the wicked get their just desserts. Job rightly dismisses this as codswallop!

• The commonest cause is sin in your life - so what have you done to deserve this? But even when provoked by his friends, we are told Job did not sin by blaming God for his suffering (JOB 1:22).

• If you didn't sin, then you must be suffering for the sins of your family. Job rightly rejects this argument as fatuous. God punishes each person according to his/her own sins, not for somebody else's.

• Once you were blessed and helped others; now it's your turn to suffer. Just don't blame God for what's happening. Shall mere mortals blame God for evil? You need to grin and bear it like a man. Thanks a bunch!

• The godly person can accept suffering with faith and in the knowledge that God is in control, loves his children like a loving father and will reward the faithful. True but it doesn't ease the pain.

• Suffering (which is part of the pain of living in a fallen creation) is just a test of faith (a chastening from the Almighty JOB 5:17-18) and part of a refining process which will result in pure gold/a fruit of righteousness.) This too is true, but it doesn't ease the pain.

• God is not unjust. He will not reject a person of integrity. The problem, Job says, I wish I could just present my case to him. But I'm just a man. How could I argue my case before Almighty God? If only I had a Mediator to speak on my behalf (JOB 9:33; 16:21) The innocent and the guilty both seem to share the same treatment. How can that be fair? Why was I born and brought up just to let me suffer like this?

• We will never uncover the mysteries of God, so it's useless trying to explain suffering (JOB 11:7). God's ways are not our ways - they are a mystery. The answer is to get right with God through prayer, confession of sins and repentance. Then you can face death/God with confidence. Yeah, but I'm still in agony.

• You may be suffering now, but God will show up and vindicate himself - and you. The wicked will get their just rewards eventually.

• Your suffering proves there's something wrong with your relationship with God. That's rubbish, Job says. I'm an innocent man God has aimed his arrows at.

• A godly life of integrity and faith in God is no guarantee against suffering. The righteous are just as much prone to suffering as the rest of humanity. In fact the memory of past blessings and a close walk with God may even heighten a sense of abandonment in the midst of suffering (JOB 29).

• Suffering is God's way of turning you back from evil - part of God's loving discipline (JOB 33:14-28)

• God is all-good and all-powerful so don't accuse him of being unfair(JOB 36:22-23). Remember God's awesome power in the universe and his miracles, and bow before him in reverent fear.