In our attempt to understand God’s ways in the midst of our suffering there are two common temptations which often fight to claim the higher ground in our mind.
First Temptation: The Temptation to Blame Someone
Automatically connecting personal suffering to personal sin is a typical human response. “Since God is good,” we reason, “he cannot be behind this accident, tragedy, or evil. Therefore, it must be the fault of the one who suffers or someone connected to him or her.” Thankfully, the Holy Spirit wrote the Old Testament book of Job at least in part to correct that response.
The book of Job is essential to our understanding of suffering because it destroys the credibility of the notion that all suffering is the result of the sin of the sufferer. Theologian D. A. Carson says it well when he explains Job’s unique contribution to our theology:
the book’s special contribution to the canon [of Scripture], and to the topic of evil and suffering, is its treatment of what most of us would call irrational evil, incoherent suffering. Such evil and suffering do not easily fit into glib “solutions.” We may remember lessons learned elsewhere in the Bible, but when
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