Loss is a part of life. Some losses are natural, even predictable. But there are other losses that are unnatural and unexpected. These “catastrophic losses” change your life forever.

How does faith survive in those times? Is God big enough for that?

The book of Job speaks of the pain and confusion that always accompanies loss and offers us a remarkable perspective to help us through our loss.

To understand the book of Job, we would do well to think of it as a play with 2 stages. There’s a lower stage - which is earth, where Job lives.  And then there’s an upper stage – where God is.

The story opens on the lower stage, introducing us to Job, a God-fearing man committed to living in a God-honoring way.  And God has given him this wonderful life.  Which to most people’s way of thinking, is only fair.  Bad things don’t happen to good people. Good things happen to good people. Right? But this philosophy is about to be shattered.

The scene shifts to the upper stage where Satan challenges God. “The only reason Job is devoted to You is because You’ve given him all this stuff. Turn off the blessing and watch how fast Job turns off his devotion.”

Then God allows Satan to test Job.  Job loses his livestock, his wealth, his servants, and all of his children.  Everything!  How does he respond? He falls down before God…and worships.

The story then returns to the upper stage where Satan again throws down the challenge. This time Job’s body is the target. Covered with painful sores, Job sits in the ash heap and his heart starts to waver.

The question being asked in the book of Job is this: Can a human being continue to have faith in a good God in the face of catastrophic loss?

That would be a lot easier if we understood the “why” of our loss. But like Job, we can only see the lower stage of life.

We don’t know what divine purposes are being fulfilled by a big God.

Some of Job’s friends hear of his troubles and come to comfort him. For 7 days they sit with him in silence.

Then they venture to explain why all this has happened to Job.  Their conclusion: Job must have done something wrong because bad things don’t happen to good people.

For 35 chapters Job and his friends debate the “why” of his suffering. Gradually, Job begins to see himself as a victim of random, senseless suffering and longs to ask God some questions and find some answers.

And then…God shows up.

For the next two chapters, God challenges Job about who is really in charge. Over and over again the Lord notes how big He is and how little Job is.

“You think you have the whole picture. You don’t. I am in total control of everything. Your loss was not an accident. Your suffering was not random. It was part of a big plan…a big plan authored by a big God.”

A light begins to dawn in Job’s thinking. And Job worships even though he isn’t given all the answers he was looking for.

At no time does God ever explain why everything happened. Rather, He shows that His sovereignty over both good and bad is so comprehensive, that He is truly bigger than our loss.  He asks Job to live with that and trust Him until the day when all things will be explained.  And that’s where we’re left as well.

We have to decide whether we will worship a big God even though our questions aren’t answered.

Satan’s mocking accusation is silenced every time a suffering child of God offers up worship, love and trust to the One who is bigger than their loss.

Text: Job

Originally recorded on June 12, 2011, at Fellowship Missionary Church, Fort Wayne, IN