Suffering The Book Of Job 1 example essay topic

Book of Job: Suffering The book of Job 1: 3, in The New Oxford Annotated Bible, states 'Job was the greatest man among all in the East. ' He was a faithful servant of God, he owned thousands of animals, and had many servants and friends. Job had a very large family with seven sons and three daughters. Why was Job chosen to suffer and receive punishment at the hands of the Lord one may ask? The major themes in the book describe the ways Job deals with suffering and despair the Lord handed him.

How one deals with despair and suffering is what makes a person who he or she is. The Lord is not a stranger to suffering. Psalms 69: 33-36, states "The Lord hears the needy and does not despise his captive people. Let heaven and earth praise him. The seas and all that move in them. For God will save Zion and rebuild the cities of Judah.

Then people will settle there and possess it; the children of his servants will inherit it; and those who love his name will dwell there". God does not intentionally inflict despair and heartache on his believers for no reason at all. I think the despair we experience, and how we deal with it, is a test to show our true selves. The Lord does not make us suffer because of what we have done. Through suffering, we become better people and grow as an individual.

You find your identity through terrible experiences. I have dealt with serious heartache and do believe that I have grown from it. I have learned how to react to certain situations and how to overcome them. I looked up the word 'suffering' in the bible, I was directed to Psalms 73: 21-26.

It states, "When my heart was grieved and my spirit embittered, I was senseless and ignorant; I was a brute beast before you. Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory. Whom have I in heaven but you?

And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever". These verses explain that Gods always with us. No matter how bad circumstances get, God will be beside us through it all. This is the main reason that Job does not understand why God is making him suffer. Job had always been true to the Lord's word and had never done anything to deserve what he was being handed.

His fame, fortune, family, and health were stripped of him for no apparent reason. In Job 1: 21, Job says, "Naked I came from my mothers womb. naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. May the name of the Lord be praised". Still Job was faithful to the Lord, Jobs faith was stronger than his anguish. What makes people believe in the Lord and stand beside him through everything?

Wars, natural disasters, and disease are all events that can make people doubt God, but the strong believers stick with the Lord. When Job had basically his whole life taken away from him, he was all alone except for his friends. His friends were there for him, but not in a way that he wanted them to be. His friends kept asking him what he had done to deserve the suffering God placed upon him. They told him that if he repented his sins, he would get all he lost back. Job still insisted that he had done nothing wrong.

His friends were not giving him the support he wanted. Job was in a lot of pain, physically and emotionally. He wanted to know why God chose him to suffer. In comparing the book of Job to modern day, I think of the Olympic Park bombing this last summer at the Summer Games. Richard Jewell was the targeted suspect for a good 4 months, he was eventually dropped as a suspect. This was good news for Jewell, but he will never be the same person.

He will forever live his life in the shadow of this terrible incident. I wonder if Richard Jewell feels that he has become a better person due to his suffering? In the end, Job does finally get back all he had lost, and then some. The unfortunate thing about this is he got back his children, but they were not the same children as before. I am not a parent, but if I were to have my child taken away from me and then be given a different one, it would be a horrible experience. The love a parent has for his or her child can never be substituted.

There is no replacement for a human being, you can replace just about anything else, however, no one can replace a lost life. If I were Job, I would have given up on the Lord. After what had happened I still would be very upset about how I was treated. It is the people that deal with adversity this way who are rewarded in the end.

All we can do is just keep on having faith in the Lord and he will have faith in ourselves.