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Early in my ministry, a wise pastor told me, “There is a heartache in every pew.” Many years in pastoral ministry have proved this true. God’s people are often a hurting people. Perhaps that is why you are reading this article: your heart is broken, you are hurting, and it feels like God is against you.
It may be of some comfort to know that you are not the first one to feel like this. The Old Testament is filled with examples of believers who suffered great trials: Joseph, Moses, Naomi, David, Jeremiah, Daniel, Hosea, Jonah, Habakkuk—the list could go on. No record of Old Testament sufferers would be complete without Job. In the New Testament, James writes, “You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful” (James 5:11).
As the leader of the church in Jerusalem, James was no stranger to trials. He saw firsthand the persecution that broke out against the church (Acts 8:1), breaking up families, tearing apart loved ones, and scattering the family of God (James 1:1). James wrote to his suffering flock, encouraging them to remain steadfast in the midst of their trials by reminding them of Job.
In the span of a minute or two, Job learned that he had lost everything: his livestock, his servants, and, most devastatingly, his children (Job 1:13–19). The news crushed him, yet in the depths of his grief, Job worshiped the Lord, saying, “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” (v. 21). Even when Job’s health was taken from him and his wife told him to curse God and die, Job continued to turn to God, saying, “Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?” (2:10). So great was Job’s suffering that his three friends sat with him on the ground for an entire week without saying a word. Job finally broke the silence, cursing the day of his birth, saying, “Let the day perish on which I was born, and the night that said, ‘A man is conceived.’ Let that day be darkness! May God above not seek it, nor light shine upon it” (3:3–4). When his friends accused him of sin, Job asked, “How can a man be in the right before God? If one wished to contend with him, one could not answer him once in a thousand times” (9:2–3). But even then he continued to take his sorrows to the Lord. Job did not run away from the Lord in bitterness. He ran to the Lord in trust.
We have heard of the steadfastness of Job, but we need more than that. We need a Savior to hold on to. Better still, we need a Savior to hold on to us. That’s where James takes us as he points us to the character of God.
As far as we know, God did not reveal to Job the high-stakes drama behind his suffering: how Satan had attacked the character of God, accusing him of buying Job’s devotion with material prosperity, charging God with being less than good (1:6–12; 2:1–6). While God did not disclose this drama to Job, He made Himself known to him as He answered Job out of the whirlwind with a flurry of questions, beginning with “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?” (38:2). Through His questions, God revealed Himself as sovereign, leading Job to repent in dust and ashes (42:1–6). God revealed Himself as good, restoring to Job double of all that he’d had before (42:10). We have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful.
Steadfastness in trial is found by focusing on the character of God, “the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God” (2 Cor. 1:3–4). God sends trials into our lives not to drive us away from Him in bitterness but to draw us near Him with tender cords of love. The story of Job teaches us that God is sovereign and God is good, even in our suffering. It is a vivid reminder that “the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Rom. 8:18).
So what should you do when it feels like God is against you? Stay in the Word. Pray. Surround yourself with Christians who will walk with you through this season of suffering. Most importantly, go to church, where God in His goodness and grace serves you with the gospel of His Son in Word and sacrament, reassuring you of His love for you. He is near to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit (Ps. 34:18). The cross of Jesus Christ is proof. He was forsaken of God for you, that you would never be forsaken (Matt. 27:46; Heb. 13:5). At the center of history stands the cross of Jesus Christ, which bears witness that God is not against you, proclaiming to you that God is for you. It may feel like God is against you, but His Word, which reveals His character, culminating in the cross of His Son, tells you otherwise. No matter what you are going through, no matter how much your heart is broken, no matter how you are feeling, this is God’s word to you: “If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (Rom. 8:31–32).