Reading: Job 1:1-12

“One of the [crafty tricks] of Satan is, to induce men to believe that he does not exist: another, perhaps equally fatal, is to make them fancy that he is obliged to stand quietly by, and not to meddle with them…”^

The book of Job is often considered one of the oldest books in the Bible because it confronts one of the oldest human questions: Why does God allow suffering in the lives of faithful people?

When pain arrives, it is natural—and often faithful—to ask, “Is God punishing me?” or “Is there something I need to change?” Sometimes that question leads to real conviction and repentance. Scripture is clear that some suffering flows from our own choices, and God can use even that for our growth.

Yet Job refuses to reduce suffering to a simple moral formula. Not all pain is punishment. Some suffering is unjust and undeserved. Life is not a spiritual vending machine where the right behavior guarantees the right outcome. Job presses us to bring before God the suffering that is not our fault—honestly, without pretense, but not expecting easy explanations.

The Hebrew Scriptures are arranged as Law (Torah), History, and Wisdom. Job stands at the doorway of the Wisdom books, and that placement is intentional. Wisdom literature can be misused to create a transactional faith—if I do this, God will do that. Job disrupts that logic from the start. It reminds us that there is a reality beyond our awareness: a cosmic struggle far above our pay grade. We are not given God’s full vantage point, even over our own lives.

Job 1 tells the truth about the world as it is. Creation is not yet fully healed. Evil is active and personal. Scripture names an adversary—Satan—whose aim is to divide, distort, and destroy. He prowls like a roaring lion, seeking to devour. His strategy is to fracture our relationships with God, with others, and even with ourselves.

In this light, Christian strength looks different from what the world imagines. It is not measured by dominance, control, or victory, but by endurance. Job shows us how to stand in the crucible—how suffering can become the place where faith is refined rather than shattered.

Faith is not forged in easy answers. It is shaped in the cries of Job and in the silence of the cross. It grows in unresolved pain as we cling to the hope that God is still present and still at work—even when we cannot see how.

1. Where are you most tempted to believe one of Satan’s “tricks” right now: that evil isn’t really at work, or that it has no meaningful impact on your life or family? How does Job 1 challenge that assumption?

2. As a father, Job practiced proactive faith by offering prayers and sacrifices before anything went wrong. In your own life, where has prayer become mostly reactive rather than formative and watchful?

3. Satan assumes Job’s faith is transactional: remove the blessing and the faith will collapse. What parts of your relationship with God are most vulnerable if comfort, success, or stability were removed?

Order “Journey with Job: a lenten study guide”

^John Wilkinson, Quakerism Examined: In a Reply to the Letter of Samuel Tuke (London: Thomas Ward and Company, 1836), chap. 4, 239–40.