In this six-day series, we are taking some lessons from the book of Job to understand how to cope with hardship. In Job 7:11-8:7, we see Job expressing his anguish and his friend Bildad responding. Job is in a bad place. He’s in deep despair and anguish. He’s searching for answers and wondering if it’s somehow his own fault. He asks God what he has done to deserve this suffering.
Enter Bildad, wanting to help his friend. Bildad does something that many of us have done: victim blaming. He says, “Your children must have sinned” and therefore they deserved to die. Why do Christians go to this place of victim blaming when responding to suffering? Part of the answer may lie in black and white thinking. Have a problem? You must have sinned… It reminds me of the bumper sticker: “God said, I believe it, that settles it.” Maybe the supernatural — and suffering — is a little more nuanced and complex than that.
Instead of victim blaming or boiling all problems down to personal sin, let’s take a different approach. In Job 29, Job takes a moment to remember the good. It’s hard to do, especially in contrast to the grief he is now experiencing. But something about reflection on the good grounds him even as he goes on to appeal to God in anguish. He’s trying to make sense of his life and find his bearings, and he connects with the identity he once enjoyed. It’s the thing that makes him sure that his own personal sin isn’t the cause of his suffering now. Remembering the good doesn’t give him any real answers, but it does connect him with his own story and truth that he didn’t do something wrong to cause his problems. When we need to cope with hardship, we can follow Job’s example and ground ourselves in the good we once knew.
