World isn't fair

 Job 38:1-7; 38-41

Where do you hear God? Listen closely, closely to the words here. God is one and the same as the hard times. Really? How can that be? Yet this is the answer to the question of why do bad things happen to good people?

We like to classify things. We like to label it. If things are going well, if we are healed and we prayed it's all Gods answer to our prayers. If not then we have done something wrong. God is punishing us, them, whoever you like because we think in this dualistic way. Right, wrong; good things, punishment; you reap what you sow; or its karma what has happened, they are getting what they dished out. 

Yet time and again we see this. Think about the story of Jonah. He expects the Ninevites to be punished. He sits up on the hill waiting for it. It doesn't happen. Or in John the man born blind, the disciples want to know who sinned, him or his parents, and Jesus responds neither. Or why would there ever be a story about an Assyrian Captain named Namaan who is healed by Elisha when he doesn't believe in God and is from the army oppressing the Hebrew people. 

Lastly, there is this story of Job. Why is it that Job loses everything and yet he is the most righteous man? He should be blessed upon blessed, but this isn't the story. He never does curse God and lose faith, but today he asks why. Why me, why now, why everything? And what is God's response? It really isn't an answer. It asks if Job has been there since the world was first created? Or around when God made all sorts of creatures, even big fearsome ones. Who does Job think that he is to ask why?

So often we have fallen into the trap of thinking there is an answer to suffering or good fortune. Yet in the end it is the faith we keep through all of life. We have never been promised and easy road. Today the disciples James and John are reminded that in order to be great they must suffer. 

We have to live life. With all the good and the bad. We have to keep the faith whether we are in good times or in bad times. Because that faith sees us through. Wonder how? Just read the Psalms sometime. You can be mad, despairing, full of wonder and praise, and just as low in the pit with all your enemies surrounding you. That is the faith which sees us through the good and bad. It is all Gods and it all returns to God. Walk today in faith.