The book of Job isn’t just a bystander to the grace of suffering and God’s presence in our suffering, but it is also our main biblical protest against faith which has been reduced to explanations or “answers.” plenty of the answers that Job’s supposed buddies give him are technically true. But it’s the “technical” part that ruins them. They’re answers without private relationship, intellect without intimacy.

The answers are slapped onto Job’s ravaged life like labels on a specimen bottle.

In reply, Job rages against this secularized knowledge which has lost touch with the living facts of The Lord God. The late ( and I would add great ) Joe Bayly and his other half, Mary Lou, lost 3 of their kids.

They lost one child following surgery when he was only eighteen days old. They also lost the second boy at age 5 because of leukemia. They then lost a 3rd child at eighteen years after a sledding accident, due to complications related to his hemophilia. Joe writes in a superb book, the very last thing we discuss.

Somebody came and talked to me of God’s dealings, of why it occurred, of hope outside the grave. He talked continually ; he revealed things I knew were true. I was indifferent, except I wished he’d depart.

He just sat beside me for an hour and more, listened when I announced something, answered briefly, prayed simply, left.

You have done it right when those in pain hate to see you go. Had we lived in his day, there is not any way we could say, “I know how you feel.” we do not.