In the midst of a Job season, no matter how difficult, God is there. He is still in control. He is still on His throne as Creator and King of the universe. And if your faith is in Jesus Christ and His salvation, then you are secure in Him now and forever.
I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. (Psalm 121:1-2)
During the past two years, my wife and I have walked through what I would call a “Job season.” I say that cautiously, realizing the weight of such a phrase for anyone who considers what Job endured. I won’t claim to have actually experienced trials equal to Job’s, and I certainly recognize that many people walk through more difficult ordeals than we have, but what separates a Job season from other kinds of suffering is that it is a prolonged series of intense trials that seem to have no end in sight and are not the result or consequence of obvious sin.
Our Job season started when we lost a baby through miscarriage. Then we, along with our four young children, lived through and lost our home in a hurricane. We then lost the chance to move to a new home for which we had just paid a deposit. Those challenges were compounded with endless insurance battles and spending months moving to different short-term rentals. Then, while rejoicing in the discovery that my wife was pregnant, she had an extraordinarily difficult pregnancy that resulted in multiple extended hospital stays. Meanwhile, I had an unexpected major surgery that kept me in the hospital for many weeks and required months of recovery at home. After the baby was born, my wife had a long recovery from the delivery, with more extended hospital stays, and then had another surgery, and another recovery. In the midst of everything else, I grieved the loss of both my grandmother and my mother.
Some of you may read all of that and think that you could never survive such a barrage of trials. Others may say, “That sounds like nothing compared to what I am going through.” I can certainly think of people who are going through even more difficult situations right now.
Whether you have suffered more, suffered less, or your suffering is still to come, none of us lives a life free from the difficulties that are part of a world marred by sin and curse. Sometimes the troubles seem unexplainable, uncontrollable, and unending. Like Job, we may relentlessly call out to God, and, like Job, we may not receive quick relief or quick answers.
But as Job realized, one thing that cannot be true is that God is absent in the suffering. He said, “Though he slay me, I will hope in him” (Job 13:15).
In my own recent Job season, I yearned for answers that did not always come and prayed for relief that often seemed long delayed. But there were also plenty of ways in which I saw God’s hand clearly at work, and I want to share just a few of them.
His Grace Is Sufficient
When the apostle Paul, who suffered plenty of his own Job seasons, prayed that he would be relieved of his “thorn in the flesh,” the Lord told him, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). God said these words to Paul, but He surely directs them to all of His children. At every point in life, this verse is a precious truth for followers of Jesus to cling to. But during any degree of suffering, it is a candle in the darkness, a rock to stand on, a life raft to cling to, a shield to hold up against despair. His grace is sufficient. The power that upholds the universe is with you.
Not only did this truth give Paul reason to resist despair, but he went even further and said, “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:10-12).
How can we be strong when we are at our weakest? Because in those times, we are forced to remember that all of our strength comes from “my helper” and “the upholder of my life” (Psalm 54:4).