When faced with suffering in life, it is tempting to quote the Scripture verse to "curse God and die." Written 4000 years ago, the same words have been spoken by countless hurting people to this day. I could feel that way too if I lost my career, children and health all at once. In the life of a highly regarded man named Job, he suddenly lost all of those things in the same day. As he sat on the ground in ashes, grieving and scraping himself with a piece of broken pottery, his wife asked Job a pointed question from her tortured heart, "Are you still holding on to your integrity? Curse God and die!" (Job 2:9)
Job's wife chose to curse God for her losses. In a day their ten children died in a desert windstorm and their cattle and riches were attacked and stolen. They had nothing left. And now Job's skin was covered with painful sores from his feet to his head. She was angry and raged at God. She told Job he should do the same and just kill himself. Why keep living when life hurts like hell?
But Job kept his integrity. He responded to his wife with a completely different view and a question of his own, "You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?" When Job first heard of his children's deaths, he had a similar response, "The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised." In all this Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing." (Job 1:21-22)
Are you like Job or Job's wife? Do you ever curse God for the bad things that happen to you and think about ending your life? When I consider Job's losses, I can understand his wife's despair to curse God and die. Sometimes human anguish seems like too much to bear and we rage at God. Examples of human tragedy are everywhere. A couple I know lost their son at only nine years old. A friend of mine was murdered at twenty-three. My brother recently suffered through major surgeries for cancer. In the news this week, a family in Minnesota just lost their parents on a cruise ship that is sinking off Italy. The list goes on and on.
But the list of good things go on and on too. In most of our lives, the good things outweigh the bad--if we choose to see it that way. Shall we accept good from God, but not trouble? Gratitude is an ancient key to life and happiness. Gratitude for good things and tolerance of the bad allows us to live instead of die.
Yet even Job struggled with keeping this attitude for long. Seven days later, "Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth. He said, "May the day of my birth perish, and the night it was said, A boy is born!"....What I dreaded has happened to me. I have no peace, no quietness; I have no rest, but only turmoil." (Job 3) Job and his wife are examples of good people who believed in God yet went through the worst of human sufferings. The truth is that no one is exempt in this world. And while the story of Job has a happy ending with new children, wealth and health, the same outcome doesn't happen for everyone.
When suffering visits your life, how do you respond? And how does your marriage cope when times go from better to worse, from richer to poorer, from health to sickness? What helps to keep your integrity and live instead of despairing to die?
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