What can really be said in the face of meaningless suffering? We question life and God, and he and life turn and question us instead. “Who are you,” he asks. “You act like, and strive for knowledge, as if you were god, but you are not. Consider my unfathomable ways.” Is it impossible to ask the meaning of life, for it is beyond our reach? Is our control of our lives only an illusion, just as we fool ourselves into thinking we can control the world? If you believe yourself to be suffering unjustly and meaninglessly, perhaps you have bought into the illusion that you can determine and order your life by righteousness, instead of living by trust. Perhaps you are being tempted to indict God.
Ultimate salvation does not rest with us, for we cannot even save ourselves day to day. Science advances, we live like kings, but cancer laughs at our impotence, and there is no peace in the land, no matter how much we believe in the power of the United Nations. The more we appear to succeed, according to the voices we prefer to listen to, the more believable the illusion becomes, and the more tempted we are to sit in judgement upon God when he won’t get with our program and vindicate our godhood.
What is Job's journey? He admits he has spoken of things he did not understand. Does he include his first and best reaction in 1:21 and 2:10? Perhaps he did not speak wrongly in those cases, but did not really understand. A change of knowledge has happened in his encounter with God. Perhaps his suffering was not ultimately meaningless, as his inner being has been brought into congruity with his words – “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.” (1:21)
