Trusting God in Suffering

“Though He slay me, yet will I trust in him: but I will maintain my own ways before Him.” Job 13:15

I remember sitting in a seminary class with 6 or 7 other students and my prof, discussing the book of Job. I asked the question,

“Can we really trust a God like this, someone who allows a person like Job to suffer incredibly?”

Human nature would say to forget about a God who would agree to inflicting pain and then abandon a man like Job when he needed God the most. Questioning God in the midst of suffering is natural, and Job did struggle with the question, “Why me, God?”

Job knew truths about God that allowed him to trust God and “maintain his ways” before him, just as he always had done. Suffering did not change how he lived or what he believed, but it did cause him to know God more deeply than he ever had before.

The book of Job is my favorite, not because it is about suffering, but because it is about knowing God in a deeper way to the point that I can trust Him and say with Job,

“For I know that my Redeemer lives, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and though worms destroy my body, yet in my flesh shall I see God…” (Job 19:25-26).

Do you know that your Redeemer lives and that he will come again to receive you into eternal glory, even though your earthly body will be destroyed? Trust means looking beyond the present suffering in this earthly life to see what lies ahead.

Father God, help me to know what a wonderful God you are and to trust you no matter what happens in my life. Amen.

By Karen Woodard
Used by Permission