Job’s friend, Eliphaz, had a very neat theory about how life should work: if you are good you get blessed, if you are bad you get cursed. He reasons, therefore, that Job must have done something wrong to be suffering so. There was indeed a time, in the infancy of God’s dealings with his people, when the physical rewards and punishments promised in Deuteronomy 28-30 were meted out very immediately according to the behaviour of the people. But, as with a child who grows up, physical rewards and punishments subside as a sense of the inherent reward of right living is gained. In the time of the Judges, Israel suffered very immediate tangible judgements when they rebelled. Five hundred years later, however, the northern kingdom of Israel in the eighth century BC prospered greatly even though they were in a state of abject rebellion. The saw their prosperity as a sign that God was happy with them (something the prophets Isaiah, Hosea and Amos refuted). Habakkuk and the writer of Psalm 73 both lament the fact that evildoers were prospering while they were suffering. The early church suffered terribly, and the apostles had to remind them that their reward would be in heaven, not necessarily on earth. So, if something bad happens to you do not assume that you are being punished for something. And if everything is going well in your circumstances don’t assume that you must be going well. The time for judgement is not now, but it is coming. So, let’s allow every circumstance to prompt us to self-examination, not condemnation.
Ask God to affirm his love and reveal your condition to you.
Read Job 6 and 7
