Job, Suffering and Asking Why

I've just blogged over at A New Name (Cos, you know, the author and me. We Have A Thing.)

Anyway, it begins thus...

Here's the story: Job loses his wealth, his health and his family in a series of extraordinary calamities. The reader is aware - though Job is not - that the whole thing began in heaven with a kind of wager between the LORD and Satan. The LORD is proud of His servant Job and so permits truly diabolical attacks which He knows Job will endure. But the suffering is intense. Job himself sits down in the ashes and wishes he was dead, his wife tells him to 'curse God and die' and his three friends - who are meant to be comforters - end up tormenting him in the most grotesque way imaginable.

Twenty times Job asks what we all ask when we suffer: "Why?"  Why me? Why now? Why this? In Job, the reader knows the answer - or at least, knows more than him.  But Job is in the dark and the why question remains conspicuously unanswered, even when the LORD shows up for an almighty happy ending. Apparently the question which Job asks most is one the LORD was content to ignore.

What do we learn? Let me give five observations...

Read more here...