Today we read the words of Bildad, Job’s friend who joined two others “to go and sympathize with him and comfort him” (Job 2:11-13).  After Job has spoken, expressing his anguish and claiming his innocence to God and to his friends who have seen how great his suffering was, his friends question his integrity.  Bildad asserts that Job is suffering as punishment for his sin and questions the uprightness of Job.  He believed that for someone to be inflicted as Job had been that there had to be sin at the root of the suffering. 

There may be times in our lives that God disciplines us to address sin in our lives.  He disciplines those he loves (Hebrews 12:4-11) and there is always a purpose in his discipline: “for our good, that we may share in his holiness”.  And there are times that our friends should “gently and humbly help that person back onto the right path” (Gal 6:1).  It is those times that we need to confess our sins and repent.  This brings hope and draws us closer to God. 

But, with Job’s story in mind, it also brings the question: Why do bad things happen to good people?  Why would a good and loving God allow a good person to suffer?  This could be answered with the question that was posed from Job himself, “Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?”  And while to us, who have been provided at the start with the information about God and Satan’s conversation, it doesn’t seem fair. We can only rest in the Lord’s declaration: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,… As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”  We can’t comprehend God. We can’t even begin to understand his ways or why he does or allows what he does.  And even if he did give us an explanation, we still couldn’t understand.  Simply, He. Is. God.