For some reason I have been finding it hard to move past the Book of Job to the Psalms. So, I decided that perhaps it is because I have more to say about Job! In Job, we are faced with the timeless question of why we suffer? Or, put more precisely, why do the innocent and the righteous suffer? Why does God allow it?
The short answer is: I don't know. I don't believe that God orchestrates everything that happens in the world. He has created men and women with free will in a temporal, physical world of change and instability. People make choices that affect others. Events happen that seem to have no cause--or better, no rationale. I am not sure that I even believe that things happen for a reason--although it is an expression I use often. Rather, I believe that God meets us at every moment of our lives, calling us and encouraging us and loving us in every success, every failure, every tragedy, every triumph, every joy, and every moment of agony. Every moment from birth to death. Calling us to Him. This allows us to find meaning in every moment--by somehow seeing God or hearing His call in that moment and imbuing it with meaning by allowing ourselves to be drawn closer to Him.
Of course, that is easier to say on a warm, early morning on the way to work after a restful weekend. Not so easy to hang on to that idea when tragedy strikes, when children are murdered or planes crash or firefighters die heroically trying to save others or young men and women die in combat in far off lands. Then, I can only hope and pray that I am right, and that God is here for me and for all of us today and every day. And I try to find the meaning....
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