When Bad Things Happen
By Pastor David Kuntz

Suffering often barges into your life without a warning or explanation.  Sorrow erupts from your soul, screaming “why me?”   The diagnosis of cancer, a heart attack, a miscarriage, and the devastating the loss of a loved one will raise the question “Why me?”  If anyone in Scripture wrestled with this question it was Job.  From Job’s perspective, his suffering did not make sense.  Experiencing suffering and not knowing why we suffer is something we all face.  So Job questioned God for allowing him to suffer and even demanded an answer from him.  Although Job’s question went unanswered, God was in control of his life.  When bad things happened to Job, they caused him to trust in 3 specific promises about God:

First, when bad things happened to Job it caused him to trust in the sovereignty of God. God has supreme position over us because He created us and rules us. In Job 10:9, Job said, “Remember, I beseech thee, that thou hast made me as the clay; and wilt thou bring me into dust again?”  (Job 10:9).  Here Job expressed a confident faith in his Maker.  And in Job 1:21 he said, “the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.”  In the midst of Job’s suffering, Job acknowledges the Lord’s sovereignty.  In essence, Job says because God made me, He has the right and authority to do what He pleases.  Since God knows exactly why things happen to you and you must submit to Him as your sovereign Lord.

The second way Job responded when bad things happened was he put his trust in the salvation of God.  Job truly believed that he had a mediator as he said, “behold, my witness is in heaven, and my record is on high”  (Job 16:19).  Job’s longing for a mediator found its’ full realization in the person of Jesus Christ.  Praise the Lord that there is a Mediator by whom we may boldly approach the throne of God with our problems.  His faith was also grounded in a confident expectation of being resurrected by a Redeemer.  “For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth:  And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God:  Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me” (Job 19:25-27).  Job expected his Redeemer to do exactly what Christ does for his people today –redeem them from sin and resurrect them to life.  Because Jesus Christ is our Redeemer and Mediator, we must have faith in God when bad things happen.

The third way Job responded to bad things was to trust in the sufficiency of God.  When God finally spoke, he didn’t offer Job an answer to his question “why me?”  Instead, God gave him a revelation of Himself.  “Then the LORD answered Job out of a whirlwind” (Job 38:1).  Because God is sufficient, He does not have to explain His ways to you.  It should be enough for you to know that He cares and never makes a mistake in your life.  You are not to live your life looking for explanations like Job did.  Instead, you are to endure suffering by hanging your faith upon these promises of God!   Job’s greatest reward was not regaining his health and wealth or even his family.  Neither was it watching his friends be rebuked by God.  His greatest reward was getting to know God better.  In this Job learned that sufficiency of God was all he needed.  This should be our goal when go through suffering like Job.  Sooner or later you will find yourself in the same position as Job.  Your world and dream castle will come crumbling down.  Nothing will make sense to you and God will seem distant and silent.  But Faith in these 3 promises of God can cure this.  I hope you will meditate upon these 3 promises when bad things happen to you.