Consider the Ostrich: Unlocking the Book of Job and the Blessing of Suffering

We all know the story of creation in the Bible. In the beginning, God created. But what if creation isn't where things started? Not in the Bible anyway. What if the first book of the Bible wasn't about creation…it was about pain. Scholars have debated for years about what the first book of the Bible really is. Most have concluded that the Book of Job was probably the first book written. Think about that: what if the message God wanted us to receive wasn't about how we were created, but what to do when life gets bad. Being a Christian means happiest. Joy. It means you get that white picket fence and have friends that bring you companionship. Hardship and spiritual warfare may be words that Christians know, but it's not exactly something we talk about. Job is a complicated and messy story because it address the elephant in the giant room that is Christianity: that believing in God doesn't mean happiness. Or wealth. Or even goodness. Job is a story that teaches us an ugly truth about what we believe: that things aren't always better on the other side of the mountain—that good things don't always happen to good people—and that sometimes life is just messed up. Most people know the story of Job. He's the guy who had bad things happen to him. But we often look to the story as more a Sunday school fairytale. Sure, it's believable. But we often look at it as a moral tale about a guy who had it all taken away. There's more to it than that. Rarely do we study it to find out what God is trying to teach us. The lesson here is deep, and one every believe should hear.