A Theology of Suffering: Lessons from Job

Good morning, my friend. I hope you're doing well.

Dr. Lee Warren here with you for another episode of Self-Brain Surgery, the Dr. Lee Warren

podcast, and I have an exciting announcement.

It is Tuesday, and that means it's Tuesdays with Tata. Man, we had a great talk on Sunday afternoon.

Tata and I talked about suffering and theology and the lessons we can learn from the Old

Testament book of Job.

If you're going through something hard, this will give you a good example of how to prepare,

how to handle it, and what to do when you're in the worst moments of your life.

And Job shows us how to get it done. Tata drew some great things out of this book, and we had a wonderful talk.

And I hope that you'll buckle up, get a pen and paper, some notes and a Bible, and if

you're working out, come back to it later, take some notes.

The transcript will be available to you so you can have the written transcript out.

Now, these are computer-generated transcripts, and there may be an error or two here and

there. across something you can't decipher, send me an email,

lee at drleewarren.com and I'll help you with the transcript and try to get it corrected.

So just let me know about that. We had an amazing talk.

I hope you're ready to talk with Tata about Job and suffering.

And that leaves us, my friend, with just one question.

Hey, are you ready to change your life? If the answer is yes, there's only one rule.

You have to change your mind first.

And my friend, there's a place for the neuroscience of how your mind works, smashes together with faith,

and everything starts to make sense. Are you ready to change your life?

Well, this is the place, Self Brain Surgery School.

I'm Dr. Lee Warren and this is where we go deep into how we're wired, take control of our thinking and find real hope.

This is where we learn to become healthier, feel better and be happier.

This is where we leave the past behind and transform our minds.

This is where we start today. Are you ready?

This is your podcast. This is your place. This is your time, my friend.

Let's get after it.

Music.

And it's another Sunday afternoon here on the river. I've got my main man Dennis McDonald for

Tuesdays with Tata. How are you doing today? I'm well, how are you? I'm okay. I guess if it's Sunday

afternoon it must be Tuesdays with Tata. Pray it is. This is the guy right here. What are we going

to talk about today? Well what I would like to talk about is Job and what happened to him,

and what I would ask that you do, friends, is you listen to this and look at it and I'll give,

I'll give you time to get to that if you're searching for it, Job,

in the Old Testament. Put yourself in the story. How would you respond?

How would you respond? And probably to make it easy for us to understand, first of all introduce Job

I will read from chapter 1 for you,

just to give you some glimpse of who he was.

Record says that there was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job.

And that man was blameless and

upright. And who feared God and turned away from evil. He had three sons and he had

three daughters and he in an agrarian situation he was a very rich man. He had 7,000 sheep,

3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, and 500 female donkeys, and many servants.

We don't know how many. And I recall, you probably heard the expression too,

poor is Job's turkey.

Yeah. And no turkey is in this list.

And so, but one of the things that we discover right away, is the posture that Job had as he presented himself to God

God was his sons and daughters would have a

feast and celebrate on their day. I'm assuming the record tells us that it's their day, I'm assuming it's their

birthday that they would meet together in one another's house and celebrate. And what Job would do after they would celebrate

after they finished eating and drinking and celebrating, Job would send for them and

consecrate them. He would pray for them. And he would offer sacrifices for,

for them. Because what Job reasoned in his own heart was that it may be that any of my

children have sinned and cursed God in their hearts. This Job did continually.

Wow. He was concerned about his family. Praying for his kids, sacrificing on their behalf.

That's right. And he consecrated them. He was concerned about that they had sinned against

God. And I don't know about you, but when this was I can't tell you, but the first time I read this.

I was taken back by the fact that when the sons of men presented themselves before God that Satan was among them.

And God looked out and saw him. He asked Satan, where have you been? Where have you come from?

Satan told him I'd been walking back and forth on the earth. But he didn't say

was doing but that he was looking. Peter tells us that he's like a roaring lion. That's right. He's looking for someone to devour.

So, and the record tells us that God asked Satan, have you considered my servant Job? Wouldn't you like to be referred to like that?

Yeah, my servant. My servant, my friend. Have you considered him? Have you thought about him?

There's no one like him. He is upright, he has never sinned against God, he has not sinned against God, he shuns evil.

And then, but Satan, Satan answers, he asks a question. And that's what he usually does.

And the first time we find, and we think that we know that the serpent was Satan,

he asked Eve a question. That's right.

So he always asks a question. And what does that cause us to do when someone asks us a question?

We have to stop and think.

And maybe we respond and maybe we don't. Maybe we don't respond accurately enough.

Maybe we respond out of our heart, I don't know.

But, and pardon me, but I'm a little stuffy today again for some reason, I don't know why.

It's Nebraska. I guess it's feed dust, I don't know. But anyway, but Satan then made a comment about Job,

about God had built a hedge around Job and had protected him and blessed him

with all of these provisions and all these possessions.

And so God said, told Satan, okay, you can have your way with them,

he's in your hand, just don't harm him.

Yeah. And so, in one day...

In one day, think about this, and if this happened to us, and you think about the times when you've suffered loss

and you've suffered trauma and suffered some dilemma that caused you to just really wonder who you were.

But in one day, Job lost everything he had. Wow.

He lost all of his possessions, he lost his children, and what did he do?

He rose up and he tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped.

He worshiped. That's amazing. And then he said, naked I came from my mother's womb and naked shall I go.

The Lord gave, give and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

I remember we used to sing a song about that.

Yeah. Blessed be the name. Matt Redmond, blessed be the name.

Yeah. Blessed be your name.

And all of this, And all of this tragedy that befell him, he did not sin and he did not curse God.

That's right.

But think about that. And we have no reference to anybody in his family,

or anyone else besides his wife

that had any concern for him.

So he was alone. Yeah.

In all of his misery, he was alone. Yeah. But that isn't the end of the story.

Because there was another day When the men of, when God's people appeared before him

and Satan was among them, God asked him the same question.

Where have you been?

What have you been doing? And he said, I've been walking back and forth truth on the earth.

And then he, God said to him, in all of the things that have happened to Job, he has not sinned.

He has not given up his integrity. That's right. He had lost all of his possessions,

and lost his children in one day.

The trauma of that had to be just overwhelming. Yeah, I mean, I can't imagine that.

Losing one child, you've lost two. It's just overwhelming grief.

And friend, if you've been through that, we're sorry, but I can't even, there's no math that gets you

to what Job must have felt.

No, no, there is not. You can't, we can ponder that as long as we have breath,

but we cannot understand it.

That's right. We cannot comprehend what that was like.

But at the end of this conversation, after God had said to Satan, think about this.

All that he's done, all you've done to him, and he has not lost his integrity, he has not sinned.

But then Satan said, well, take his life.

And God told him, no, you can have your way with him if you want, but you cannot take his life.

So what does that tell you about, like I said, there's several lessons here that we could be learning

and talking about that.

And I don't have a real answer for what kind of situation or relationship that God has when he looks at Satan

or what he thinks about when he looks at Satan.

But we know already that he's got Satan on a short leash. That's right.

Satan can only go so far. But anyway, what happened to Job next is he was covered with sores,

from the soles of his feet to the top of his head.

Yeah.

And so he was so bad that he took pottery shards and scratched himself with them. And he sat in ashes.

Think about that situation that he's in. he's lost everything, then he's beginning to lose his health.

And then he only, but he did not sin. He did not curse God. He was not against God.

Even, but his wife came and said, you still have your integrity.

Why don't you just curse God and die?

His wife. His wife.

Curse God and die. She didn't want to see him suffer. No. And he accused her of being foolish

because the Lord, why would we, he questioned, he said, why would we question God

if he gives good gifts and he gives bad gifts as well?

That's right. takes them away. But in all of this suffering that he went through, he did not sin. He did not

reject God. And then his friends came to see him. His friends showed up.

Now think about it, no one in his family other than his wife has said anything to him

that we know of. In all the suffering that he's going through,

he does not have a friend. He does not have anybody nobody to talk to, nobody to commiserate with.

But his friend showed up and when they saw him from a long way off they didn't even recognize him. He was so.

Miserable. And they even cried and tore their garments, tore their robes, threw dust in the air.

And they sat on the ground for seven days and seven nights and did not say a word.

So they did well. They did what John Swanson says, they showed up and shut up. That's right,

that's right, they just they appeared, they appeared, but but then later on we'll see

that they made a mistake, they started talking. That's right, they started talking. Yeah,

The only thing that we see that Job did...

And I can understand that. He cursed, didn't say he cussed,

but he cursed the day that he was even born.

Yeah.

And that part I can understand. I don't remember being in any kind of situation like that,

where I felt like that I wished I had not been born,

or I wanted to curse my birthday.

I did not want to curse God, but I can recall some times when I negotiated with him.

Yeah, me too.

And I can ask, I can remember times when I said to him, why?

And then I can remember times when I said to him, well, don't you remember these things that I did?

And then it occurred to me, he knows everything.

Yeah, he does. He knows everything. Who am I that I, and I like Job,

I understand when finally at the end of this whole narrative,

that God talks to Job personally one-on-one and Job finally says, I'll put my hand over my mouth.

That's right. And that's where I've arrived.

And not far be it from me to even question.

Now, does God not like that? Does God reject our questions? I don't think so.

I think he wants to hear from us. He wants to know, he wants us to say how we're feeling.

He wants to hear from us about that.

He wants us to unburden ourselves.

And I think that's what Job was doing. He was unburdening himself.

But I can't even comprehend in my feeble thinking, after all this tragedy and all this,

these massive things that happened to him.

The loss of his family, his children, his possessions, his own health was deteriorating,

and he did not curse God, and he did not sin against God.

He maintained his integrity.

Because, like he said, Job said it succinctly, he said, naked I came, and naked I'll go. That's right.

And that's where we are. We brought nothing in, and we'll take nothing out.

Yep.

And so we have to, what the lesson for us here is, how do we suffer?

How do we grieve?

Is there a formula? Are there steps?

We're told and we're educated that there are, but for me, I can't quite understand the steps.

I can't understand the process. All I know is at some point,

And here again to me, a lot of this is just, and I count that as a blessing though,

that a lot of this is now just like a blur in my memory. That's natural, that's true.

And I remember the good times, and I remember the times of when we laughed.

But I remember times when.

But Satan brings memories that say, well, don't you remember what you did?

Yeah. Don't you remember what you said?

And so that's where we're taught to rebuke Satan.

Jesus' name and order him to get behind us. That's what Jesus did when he was in the wilderness.

And quote scripture to him.

That's right, and I think there's a lesson here too, Dad. When we talk about how Job responded

with integrity to the trial, I think that is almost what it is.

It's forensic evidence that he had done the prehab work, the decision-making work before he had his massive thing.

That's right. But obviously, as old enough to have six children and a vast fortune and a wife, he'd lived

through some hard things before. Everybody has. Absolutely. So who knows what those things were?

Were they illnesses or stillbirths or miscarriages or whatever?

But what we can tell from Job's response is that when the pressure was on, he fell to

a pretty high level of preparation.

Absolutely. And so that says for us, this idea that we talk about in Hope is the first dose is like,

Make your decisions about who God is, friend, before you have the massive thing happen.

Make your decision about the promises you're going to hold on to, what your baseline faith

is because, like Tata just said, trauma and the enemy will attack you in the places where

you have the most doubt.

He'll attack you in the place where you have the most regret.

He'll recall to mind the things that you could have done differently or better, and you've,

got to decide, God still loves me. You've got to know that in your core, what you believe to be true.

And so it's not that you won't falter. It's how far will you falter?

Yes. How completely will you falter?

And Job gives us an example. Absolutely. Because and God, the clue for us is that Job said

God gives and he takes away. That's right.

So he understood. Now, now, is he blaming God? No, he is. he recognized that all his blessings come from God? Yes.

And I'm thinking that he recognized the fact that none of this was done with his hands.

He was picked out, he was singled out, he received blessings. And the other part of it is

when all of this happened to him, one of the things that,

he did when he lost his children, when he lost his possessions, he fell to the ground, well he tore his garment, shaved his head, fell to the ground, and worshipped.

He worshipped. He remembered God. And he acknowledged God. But anyway, the whole point is that what

are we going to do when we don't have any place to go? The only thing that we can do

is we could cry out for God to help us, and if we haven't accepted God as,

is the one that will help us, then we're in trouble.

We got an email this week, a few days ago, from a woman who was driving in her car on

the way to the hospital where her daughter was in for a drug-related psychotic break and suicide attempt.

She said that she, devastating, right? She turned on the radio and one of our podcast episodes was on about what to do when you

don't know what to do.

That's right. In that episode, Tommy Walker's song gives us that Job response of, when I don't know

what to do, I worship. When I don't know what to do, I give thanks. And that's not because

we're crazy. So, I mean, hear this, friend, take it into your heart. We're not saying

that you just cast your cares aside and go to church and forget about it and move on.

That's not the point. The point is that because we know we have a God and a Savior who cares

enough about us to receive us in our pain, even though we have sinned, even though we,

we were broken, even though we may not handle the trauma thing properly or well, we have

a God who can do something about it. He can redeem it. He can help us. He can come alongside

us in our pain. He can rise to show us compassion. And ultimately, there is a resurrection and

we will be reunited with those people that we've lost. So the proper response is gratitude

that we have access to the Savior, the healer, the one who cares about us. It's not crazy,

forget about it, move on, worship.

It's not that, it's thank God we have this ability to turn to Him because He's the only one who can help us.

That's right, and God doesn't promise to fix it.

That's right. He doesn't say He will fix it. He doesn't say He'll bring them back.

He doesn't say He will give us good health, He doesn't prosper us.

But He does say that He will be with us.

And that's one of the things that has plagued me for a long time is that you don't forget, you can't forget.

You'll have memory of it, whatever the event is, you'll have memory of it as long as you have breath. That's right.

And I don't know, I'm not saying that that's good or bad, I'm not judging it, I'm just saying that's a fact.

But in all of that, the only thing that I know that you can do is ask God for peace. That's right.

And comfort and help. And one of the things that we have to understand

And as we have to say, we have to ask God to help us get through this.

Help us get to the other side. There's an Old Testament, New Testament duality here that is helpful.

When you say we can ask God for peace, Paul says in Philippians 4 when we feel these things, when we have anxiety,

we are to be anxious for nothing but in everything by

prayer and supplication present your request to God and what will happen.

Of God will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. He'll guard your heart, right?

Yes. The Old Testament says He is close to the brokenhearted. He will rise to show you compassion. He will present His peace to you.

He will get up. He'll get up out of His chair to come and help you in your weakness and your pain. So here's the point of that, Tata. The point

of it is when He says that His peace will guard our minds, what happens to you when

and you're in extreme stress,

what happens to you when you've gone through the massive thing?

Your mind goes crazy. That's right. And you start saying, this is my fault.

This is never gonna be okay. I will never survive this. My family's gonna fall apart.

You start hearing all these lies that come. Some things may be based in some truth.

Yes, I'll always be sad. Yes, my family will struggle with this.

But the follow-on thoughts are not usually true. You're not disqualified from being a dad anymore.

That's right. Your wife's gonna leave you. this is gonna end up this way.

So what happens is God comes in and says, from the Old Testament, cease striving, be still.

That's right. And know that I am God.

I'm gonna help you here. I'm the one who can get in the boat with you,

like you said last week, and calm the storm.

I'm the only one who can help you in this moment, so cease striving and be still,

and I will guard your heart while we get through this together.

Yes, and that's the key right there.

Because remember that in all of this, All the tragedy that fell upon him.

He was alone. He was alone. He was by himself. He needed help. And so three friends came to him.

And they did well for a time. And then they started answering Job. They thought they were,

and I'm sure that their motives were correct. God didn't appreciate it though. He didn't agree with No.

In fact, all of them he put in the same pot by accusing them of wronging Job. That's right.

Well, they committed one of the cardinal sins that I think we do when we talk too much when people are hurting.

And one of the cardinal sins is we attribute to God things that are not true of God.

That's right. We're saying, well, this must be happening because you sinned.

You must have done something wrong.

They start accusing Job of not having integrity or being who he seems to be.

Well, and the key to that is, whenever you go to see someone that is in that kind of situation,

ask this question of yourself, what would I do if it was me?

That's right.

What would I want if it was me? I'd be quiet. So the fact is, they were applying bad theology

in this situation, which we face too when somebody says something like,

God must have needed another angel, or something like that that's not true.

People don't become angels when they die.

Bad theology. It's bad theology. So when you attribute to God something

that isn't true of God, and in this case it was,

God must have done this to your kids because you must have sinned.

We know from the Old Testament, he doesn't kill your kids routinely when you sin.

There are some examples of David and his son and all that.

But it's not necessarily true that the bad things that happen in our lives are because of our behaviors.

No. Or our parents' behavior or somebody else's behavior.

Sometimes we live in a fallen world and bad things just happen.

And when they do, it's traumatic and it's tragedy and we have to let God help us get through it.

That's exactly right. But one of the things that we want to impress too

is that if you're hearing us,

that this may sound, we're not making it easy.

We're not painting you a picture though that is horrifying, but yet we're telling you that what we're telling you

is coming from truth because we've walked this way before.

So it's not something that's new to us. That's right. We know what it feels like. That's right.

And we know what it feels like on both sides of it. And we know how we felt when we talked to God.

So in all of this think about yourself and what kind of relationship you have with God and if you even believe there is a God and,

That part I can't even understand because I just well I sent that quote to you from see it from I think it was from Spurgeon,

that it that Atheism that even the demon even Satan didn't fall for that. Yeah, that's right. He didn't have that vice. That's right.

That's right. That's right. So there is a being, our creator,

who knows now what it feels like because Jesus Christ

has been here and walked among us. So he knows what that pain looks like. He knows what it feels like. He knows what it feels like to be

abandoned. He knows what it feels like to be alone.

That's right. When he faced his accusers, he was alone. So Job is in this situation

where he is alone as well. But he knows.

He knows exactly what kind of relationship that he has with God. First of all he fell down and he worshiped, then he said the

Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

And good things come from God. And then he posed a question that said also, why

we accept the bad things as well.

Those are hard. The thing about it is we do not have a promise that this life will be Thank you.

There is no promise that it will be easy. No, in fact, we are promised that it will be hard.

Jesus said that. Absolutely. In this world you will have trouble, John 16, 33.

So the real question I've come up with after 20 plus years working among the sickest people in the world,

as a neurosurgeon is the right question isn't why me, it's why did it take this long for it to be me?

Like, it happens to everybody. That's right.

The life lived thinking that nothing bad will ever happen to you to you is one in which you are set up

to be really disappointed and really unfounded, unanchored when life does get hard,

because it will get hard.

And this is not to be fatalistic, it's just a fact that in this world you will have trouble.

So the right question isn't, why is this happening to me? Although we all ask it, and we should do it, 100% we do.

That's not the right question. The right question is, how can you help me

in this time, God, now that this has happened? What can I do now?

Turn it around in your mind and in your heart so that you understand that this is not something

that is happening with you or to you, it happened in front of you.

It was in your presence and you were a part of it.

But it's not something that you have to take with you your whole life.

But like I said, you're never gonna forget.

That's right. Well, it's that definition of trauma and this is important as we come to an end today here.

Trauma is not what happened to you.

Trauma is your set of responses to what happened to you. That's right.

And the reason that's an important distinction is because Job would live the rest of his life

with those six children having perished.

That's right. They weren't coming back. That happened to him.

And if his trauma, if he identified his trauma as the thing that happened, he would have been hopeless

because that will never change.

The thing that happened has always happened.

It's always true.

But the trauma response can be mitigated and healed if we respond to it properly.

And Job shows us the way.

Turn to God, worship, seek his help, let him fill us with that peace.

And he'll help us to tell a different story over time. It doesn't happen overnight. No.

But as time goes on in our life, we begin to see a different story

where we can be sad and find abundance in our life again.

That's the reason that John 16, 33, in this world, you will have trouble.

And John 10, 10, I came here that you might have an abundant life. That's the reason that they are

both true at the same time. That's right. And God made the ultimate sacrifice, John 3, 16.

Where God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son. Jesus Christ came and he lived

and he died. He was killed by people that he talked to, people that knew him. And even the

And the Romans couldn't find any fault with him.

Yeah, truly innocent. And yet he suffered greatly.

That was the price that was required. Why that price?

I have no answer. We'll know someday, maybe.

But by then, when we're in heaven, we won't be worried about asking a question.

That's right, that's right, that's right.

So the thing is about all of this, as you think about these kind of things,

Put yourself in that his situation.

What would I do?

And ask yourself that question. What would I do? How would I respond?

Would I give up everything I have, probably to go back to where you were?

But there's one thing about it, we can't go back.

Yesterday's gone. All we have is right now as we sit here. And tomorrow may or may not happen.

That's right.

We may not have tomorrow. So we have to do what we can today.

Right now, as we sit here, and as we live, and as we breathe, and we have a choice, you can decide.

I can decide whether I'm gonna face this, and I'm gonna ask God for help,

or I can live in misery the rest of my life.

Wow.

Well, that's an important decision, Tata. So we've come to this crossroads where

we have a decision to make with, we're facing these massive things,

we're going through this hardship, ta-ta, we're dealing with what seems to be impossible,

but yet Job has shown us a model of godly suffering and where to turn for answers.

And if somebody's gonna make that kind of decision, when should they start? Start today.

Start today. One, two, three, four. you.

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Music.