Whom do you worship?
Before we get started, please check out my latest article on Locals, The Trumpian "art of the deal" doesn't work with foreign policy, check out my last article, A reflection on Psalm 5, and, if you really want to help me out, go here; Help with medical bills
I'm still a bit sick, but, before I got sick, I was reading the Book of Job with my nephew I'm feeling a little better, though.
Anyway, I'm not going to go into every single detail of the Book of Job, but, I know there are some things you don't say when someone loses a child.
Let's start with this; (because I'm not going through the whole thing, because that would take too long),
“While he was yet speaking, there came another and said, “Your sons and your daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house, and behold, a great wind came across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young people, and they are dead, and I alone have escaped to tell you”.
Now, you may be asking “why would God do this”? God didn't (please read all of chapter one), yet, his friends think that it's punishment for sin.
That's the whole point of the Book of Job, suffering isn't always punishment from God. I've written about this topic before. But, more to the point, it seems to me that Job's friends can come of as jerks.
There are some things that you NEVER do say someone who has lost children, like this, “The Zophar the Naamathite answered and said: Should a multitude of words go unanswered, and a man full of talk be judged right? Should your babble silence men, and when you mock, shall no one shame you?
For you say, “My doctrine is pure, and I am clean in God's eyes”, but oh that God would speak and open his lips to you, and that he would tell you the secrets of wisdom!
For he is manifest in understanding. Know thaw then that God exacts of you less than your guilt deserves”.
Owe, Zophar, owe! (Job 11:1-6)
Okay dude, presumably, you know Job. And you would know Job is “blameless” and “upright”. (Job 1:1). You can't just go making the assumption that people suffer because they sinned.
Here's a question, to Zophar, yes or not, the elderly suffer pain when they're in their dying days?
Well, yeah, they do. Does this mean that those, including people who are bedridden, who might not even be able to sin, are suffering because of their sins?
Of course not.
Recently, I saw that former US President Joe Biden has cancer. I'm not a fan of Biden, and would have never voted for him. Joe Biden diagnosed with 'aggressive form' of prostate cancer with metastasis to the bone
But, I do believe I should pray for him.
Anyway, there are some people acting like Biden “deserves” this, even some alleged Christians. Suffering CAN be punishment for sin (I mean, when you think about it, that is exactly what hell is), but, suffering can simply be the results of other things.
And sometimes, and this might be the most painful for y'all, suffering just happens.
Imagine being a nine year old boy and losing your father who had an incurable disease.
Because that happened to me.
Did I do anything to deserve that as a nine year old boy? No. And what about my 45 year old father? No. In fact, ALS is genetic in my dad's family. Sometimes, suffering just happens.
I'll leave you with this story. Let me preface this by saying, you should go to church. Anyway, I spent time in a mental hospital (my depression and anxiety are well documented), and, I remember a woman there saying which she was in the mental hospital (mine was voluntary). And it's because she punched a relative of hers. Why? Because her relative stated that her child was sick, it seems to me, like because she wasn't going to church. I agree you should go to church, and also assault is wrong, but, the child suffering probably had nothing to do with the kid's mom not going to church.
So it is, sometimes, suffering just happens. And Zophar, man, be nicer to your friends.
Adam Charles Hovey is the founder of the Catholicism, News, and whatever community on Locals, and is host of the weekly Bible study, Coffee and Christianity