Unlimited DestinySample

  

There are three things to notice in Job 5:6–9. The first one is that affliction is not purposeless. It doesn’t just “spring up out of the ground”. It isn’t random.

It’s true that we often cannot see the purpose of affliction. When we do this, we are fulfilling the words of our Lord when He said,

What I am doing you do not understand now, but you will know after this (John 13:7, NKJV.)

The Bible also tells us that,

No chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness (Hebrews 12:11, NKJV; see also Hebrews 12:6).

The second thing to notice is that affliction is, sadly, normal. The text says that “man is born to trouble.” Just as surely as the sparks go up when you are sitting around a campfire, so too you and I were born to trouble. There is no dodging it.

Trouble is, in fact, one of the most necessary parts of life. The worst evil that can come upon us is the delusion of self-sufficiency. Trouble saves us from that terrible fate and its awful results.

However, the third and most important thing in this text is that it tells us that trouble makes us seek God. The whole book of Job is about a man who asks God for the reason for his troubles. He never receives an answer. When you’re in affliction, instead on trying to understand why, on what can you better spend your energy?