The following is an excerpt from a book about suffering written by Timothy Downing, Missionary in Ecuador. The book is titled: The Storm Will ComeBuilding Foundations for Inevitable Suffering
Job’s Witness: Divine Appointment Rather Than Abandonment
The Book of Job stands as perhaps the most profound meditation on suffering in all of literature, not merely because of its unflinching portrayal of human anguish but because of its radical reorientation of how we understand the relationship between divine sovereignty and human affliction. In a single narrative, it demolishes both the simplistic theodicy that equates suffering with divine punishment and the equally simplistic assumption that God’s primary concern is human comfort.
Job’s story confronts us with a man who embodies everything our therapeutic age would recognize as psychological and spiritual health. He is prosperous but not materialistic, successful but not proud, blessed with family but not idolatrous in his affections. The text specifically notes that he was “blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil.” If suffering were primarily the result of personal failure or inadequate faith, Job should have been immune to significant trial.
Yet it is precisely Job’s righteousness that occasions his suffering. The opening chapters reveal what Job himself never learns in this life: that his afflictions come not from divine neglect or punishment but from divine confidence in his spiritual maturity. God’s boast to Satan—”Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth?”—establishes the theological framework for everything that follows. Job’s suffering is not evidence of divine abandonment but of divine appointment.
This distinction is crucial for understanding the biblical architecture of affliction. In the economy of divine providence, suffering often comes not to those who deserve it most but to those who can bear it best. This is not divine cruelty but divine wisdom—the recognition that spiritual strength, like physical strength, is developed through resistance, and that those whom God intends for the greatest glory must often pass through the deepest valleys.
Job’s friends represent the various inadequate theodicies that human reason constructs to explain suffering. Eliphaz appeals to experience, suggesting that suffering always follows sin like thunder follows lightning. Bildad appeals to tradition, arguing that the accumulated wisdom of the ages confirms the connection between wickedness and woe. Zophar appeals to logic, insisting that divine justice requires punishment to fit crime and therefore Job’s extreme suffering must reflect extreme sin.
Each friend offers a portion of truth—sin does indeed have consequences, tradition does contain genuine wisdom, and divine justice is real. But their fundamental error lies in their assumption that they can comprehensively explain the ways of God through the application of human reason. They transform the mystery of suffering into a mathematical equation, reducing the infinite complexity of divine providence to simple formulas that human minds can grasp and manipulate.
Job’s response to his friends reveals both the inadequacy of their counsel and the proper posture before divine mystery. He does not deny God’s justice or question God’s existence, but neither does he accept their simplistic explanations. Instead, he maintains what might be called a “faithful perplexity”—a stance that combines unwavering trust in God’s character with honest acknowledgment of God’s inscrutability.
“Though he slay me, I will hope in him,” Job declares, “yet I will argue my ways to his face.” This is not the statement of a man who has found easy answers to difficult questions, but of one who has learned to live faithfully within the tension of unanswered questions. Job’s faith is not based on his ability to understand God’s purposes but on his conviction that God’s purposes, however mysterious, proceed from a character that is fundamentally trustworthy.
The divine speeches that conclude the book do not provide Job with the explanations he seeks but with something far more valuable: an encounter with the God whose ways transcend human understanding. God does not answer Job’s questions about justice and suffering but instead asks Job questions about the fundamental ordering of creation. The message is clear: the same God who sustains the cosmos in its intricate complexity can be trusted to order the affairs of human life, even when that ordering passes beyond the boundaries of human comprehension.
Job’s final response represents one of the most profound expressions of faith in all of Scripture: “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” This is not the repentance of a sinner who has finally acknowledged his wrongdoing, but the repentance of a creature who has finally understood his place in the cosmic order. Job repents not of sin but of presumption—the presumption that he could hold God accountable to standards of justice that he himself could comprehend and apply.
The book concludes with Job’s restoration, but this restoration comes only after he has learned to trust God’s goodness independent of his circumstances. The temporal blessings that return to him in the final chapter are not rewards for his faith but testimonies to God’s grace. They do not “explain” his suffering any more than his suffering “explained” some hidden sin. They simply demonstrate that the God who permits affliction is also the God who provides comfort, and that both affliction and comfort serve purposes that transcend immediate human understanding.
The Psalms as Blueprints for Lament and Faith
If Job provides the theological framework for understanding suffering within the economy of divine providence, the Psalms provide the practical vocabulary for expressing the full range of human response to that suffering. Far from the sanitized piety that characterizes much contemporary Christian expression, the Psalms present us with a spirituality that is both brutally honest about human anguish and unwaveringly committed to divine faithfulness.
The lament psalms, in particular, offer what might be called a “grammar of affliction”—a way of speaking to God and about God that encompasses the full spectrum of human emotion without abandoning the fundamental conviction that God remains both sovereign and good. Psalm 13 provides a paradigmatic example: “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day?”
These are not the words of a man whose faith has failed but of one whose faith is mature enough to encompass honest emotion. The psalmist does not pretend that his suffering is insignificant or that his questions are inappropriate. He brings his full humanity—including his confusion, frustration, and pain—into the presence of God, trusting that the God who made him human can handle his humanity.
Yet the psalm does not end in complaint. After expressing his honest anguish, the psalmist moves toward trust: “But I have trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord, because he has dealt bountifully with me.” This movement from lament to trust does not represent a denial of the reality that prompted the lament but a deepening of faith that can encompass both present difficulty and enduring hope.
Psalm 22, made famous by Christ’s quotation of its opening line from the cross, demonstrates how the vocabulary of lament can serve not merely personal expression but divine purpose. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” becomes not just the cry of human dereliction but the articulation of a cosmic abandonment that makes possible cosmic redemption. The psalmist’s words, written centuries before the crucifixion, provide the very language that the incarnate Son needs to express the depths of his suffering on behalf of fallen humanity.
This suggests something profound about the nature of scriptural lament: it serves not merely as emotional release for the individual sufferer but as preparation for participation in the sufferings of Christ. When we learn the vocabulary of the psalms, we acquire not just tools for expressing our own pain but resources for understanding and entering into the redemptive suffering that stands at the center of Christian faith.
The imprecatory psalms—those that call for divine judgment upon enemies—present particular challenges for contemporary Christians shaped by therapeutic sensibilities. Psalm 137, with its shocking conclusion (“Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock!”), seems to violate everything we believe about Christian love and forgiveness. Yet these psalms serve crucial purposes within the biblical architecture of affliction.
First, they acknowledge the reality of evil and the legitimacy of righteous anger in response to it. In an age that often confuses tolerance with virtue, the imprecatory psalms remind us that some things ought to provoke anger, that the absence of moral outrage in the face of genuine injustice represents not spiritual maturity but spiritual numbness. The psalmists’ anger at oppression, violence, and corruption reflects not personal vindictiveness but appropriate response to violations of divine order.
Second, these psalms model the crucial discipline of bringing our anger to God rather than taking vengeance into our own hands. The psalmist who calls for divine judgment upon his enemies is not planning to administer that judgment himself but is entrusting the matter to the only One qualified to execute perfect justice. This represents not weakness but wisdom—the recognition that human anger, however justified, lacks the perfect knowledge and perfect righteousness necessary for perfect judgment.
Third, the imprecatory psalms prepare us for the reality that some suffering in this world will never receive earthly resolution, that some injustices will be rectified only in the final judgment. They maintain hope for ultimate justice while acknowledging that such justice may not arrive within the temporal boundaries of human life. This is not passive resignation but active faith—trust that God’s justice, however delayed, remains certain.
The wisdom psalms add another dimension to the biblical understanding of suffering by placing it within the context of instruction and formation. Psalm 119, the longest chapter in the Bible, repeatedly connects affliction with spiritual education: “It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes.” “Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep your word.” The psalmist understands his suffering not as meaningless pain but as divine pedagogy, a form of instruction that could not be acquired through any other means.
This perspective transforms suffering from an unfortunate interruption to spiritual growth into one of its primary methods. The difficulties that we naturally seek to avoid become, in the economy of divine grace, the very means by which spiritual maturity is achieved. The psalm does not suggest that all suffering serves educational purposes or that we should seek suffering for its own sake, but it does establish the principle that God can and does use even the most painful experiences as instruments of formation.
Christ’s Model: Redemptive Suffering as Cornerstone
The incarnation represents the ultimate validation of suffering as divine method rather than divine mistake. In the person of Jesus Christ, we encounter not a God who remains removed from human affliction but one who enters into it so completely that suffering becomes the primary means of redemption. The cross stands not as an unfortunate necessity that God was forced to accept but as the chosen method by which divine love accomplishes human salvation.
The Gospels present Jesus’ suffering not as an accident or interruption but as the fulfillment of his messianic purpose. From the beginning of his ministry, Jesus speaks of suffering not as something to be avoided but as something to be embraced: “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again.”
This “must” (Greek: dei) indicates not external compulsion but internal necessity—suffering is not imposed upon Jesus against his will but flows from his identity and mission. The same divine love that creates and sustains also redeems, and redemption in a fallen world requires the assumption of fallenness, including its ultimate consequence in death.
The temptation narratives reveal how thoroughly Jesus rejected the alternative approaches to messiahship that would have avoided suffering. Satan’s offers—turning stones to bread, compelling worship through spectacular signs, wielding earthly political power—represent ways of accomplishing messianic goals without messianic suffering. Each temptation is an invitation to achieve good ends through means that bypass the cross.
Jesus’ rejection of these alternatives establishes a principle that extends beyond his unique messianic role to the general shape of Christian discipleship. The way of the cross is not merely Jesus’ way but the way he calls his followers to embrace: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” Christian discipleship is not marked by the absence of suffering but by the willingness to suffer for the sake of others and for the advancement of God’s kingdom.
The Garden of Gethsemane provides the most profound picture of how faithful suffering is embraced. Jesus’ prayer—”Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done”—demonstrates that acceptance of suffering does not require the absence of natural human reluctance. Even the Son of God experiences the full range of human emotion in facing suffering, including the desire for its removal.
Yet this natural reluctance does not lead to rebellion or despair but to submission: “Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.” This prayer becomes the pattern for all Christian response to unavoidable suffering—the honest acknowledgment of human limitation and preference combined with the faithful surrender to divine wisdom and purpose.
The crucifixion itself reveals the depths to which divine love will descend in order to accomplish human redemption. The physical agony of crucifixion, horrific as it was, pales in comparison to the spiritual anguish of the Son’s separation from the Father. When Jesus cries out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” he experiences not merely physical death but something far worse—the cosmic loneliness of bearing the full weight of human sin and divine wrath.
This cry of dereliction has troubled believers throughout Christian history, with some attempting to minimize its significance or explain it away. But the text will not permit such evasion. The Son’s cry represents a genuine experience of abandonment, the price required for the world’s redemption. In that moment of ultimate suffering, Jesus experiences what every human being deserves to experience—the full consequence of rebellion against God—so that no human being need experience it eternally.
The resurrection does not negate the reality of Christ’s suffering but validates its purpose. The risen Jesus bears the marks of crucifixion in his glorified body, indicating that suffering, when offered in love and obedience, becomes not something to be transcended but something to be transformed. The wounds become, in the economy of resurrection, signs of victory rather than defeat, testimonies to love’s triumph over evil rather than evidence of love’s failure.
This pattern of suffering leading to glory becomes normative for Christian experience. Paul writes, “We are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.” The connection between present suffering and future glory is not accidental but essential—glory comes not in spite of suffering but through it.
The epistle to the Hebrews makes this connection explicit in its description of Jesus as “the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” Jesus’ suffering was not meaningless endurance but purposeful sacrifice, motivated not by masochistic delight in pain but by the “joy that was set before him”—the joy of accomplished redemption.
This same pattern marks authentic Christian discipleship. Believers are called not to seek suffering for its own sake but to embrace it when it serves the purposes of God’s kingdom. The missionary who accepts hardship to reach unreached peoples, the parent who sacrifices personal ambition for the sake of their children, the believer who chooses costly obedience over comfortable compromise—all participate in the same pattern of redemptive suffering that marked their Lord’s earthly ministry.
The implications of Christ’s model extend beyond individual Christian experience to the nature of the church’s mission in the world. A Christianity that promises believers immunity from suffering rather than resources for bearing it faithfully misrepresents both the Gospel message and the Gospel method. The church that seeks success through the avoidance of sacrifice rather than through its embrace abandons the pattern established by its founder.
This does not mean that Christians should be indifferent to unnecessary suffering or that the church should fail to work for the alleviation of preventable pain. The same Christ who embraced the cross also healed the sick, fed the hungry, and comforted the afflicted. Christian concern for human welfare flows directly from Christian understanding of human dignity as created in God’s image.
But it does mean that Christians must distinguish between suffering that serves redemptive purposes and suffering that merely destroys, between the discipline that leads to spiritual growth and the trauma that produces only damage. The cross provides the criterion for this distinction: suffering that serves love—whether love of God, love of neighbor, or love of truth—participates in Christ’s redemptive work and therefore possesses ultimate meaning and value.
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