Does Everything In Life Happen For a Reason??
I'm just getting ready for bed. I just finished reading the story of Job in the Bible and was doing some research on it. It's an interesting chapter, because in which God seems to let Satan punish Job "for no reason" but merely to test Job When Job is hurting, unable to find his faults and wishing he was never born, his friends do not comfort him but instead insist it must be something that he has done. In the end God speaks to them all and asks them where were they when God created the earth, and if they can send lightning or know why the ostrich buries her eggs in the sand (among many other things). After job repents and restores his faith and comfort back to God and His plan, God is upset with Job's friends for not speaking to Job what is right, and orders them to offer 7 bullocks and 7 rams to Job for a burnt offering for God, and that Job will pray for them. When Job does, his wealth and power is restored more than before his suffering. A particular verse that really sticks out to me is…
Job 28:28 (King James Version) And unto man he said, Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.Now I am by no means saying that my own personal sufferings are without reason or comparing myself to Job or any righteous man – or that they even compare to Job's. I know I have not always been my best, even when trying to be or when I thought I was. Nonetheless it is a really interesting read. I have to thank my Mom again for my bible, I still try to read it everyday. Also, I find it ironic that Job's name is "job", don't you? 😛
By the way, here is a good interpretation of the story of Job, It makes me believe that everything does happen for a reason, even if I cannot understand it now, but it also makes me wonder if things are predestined or do they change at God's will? Obviously, it is not for me to know or ever truly understand… 😉
In the book of Job we are presented with a fictional character set into a fictional situation which is then presented as a test case of ancient Jewish wisdom ideology as presented in the book of Proverbs in the Bible. It has become a popular belief that Job was tested by God, in that God was allowing bad things to happen unjustly to Job as a means of testing the loyalty of Job under hard conditions. We are told right off the bat that Job was one of the most righteous men of his day, and that God was well pleased with Job. Job's favor with God is demonstrated according to the prevailing standards of ancient Hebrew wisdom ideology (in other-words he was rich because he was righteous). The 'accuser' then comes onto the scene and insists that Job is only righteous 'because he is rich.' Takeaway his riches and he would curse God. God agrees to allow the accuser to strike out at Job.
It is this establishing of the premise of the book that people have seized upon to interpret the book of Job as 'about testing'. This is to completely miss the point of what follows. Indeed, by showing God consenting to disaster upon Job, at the very beginning of the book the author is bringing into question the fundamental premise of wisdom ideology-that life is ordered and understandable and predictable. No reason is given for God's decision to allow disaster to happen to Job. This is the point. It is 'a mystery,' and as such an initial blow is struck at the prevailing ideology of the day, which held that all is understandable, the God is knowable and revealed in human history, that the universe is governed by immutable laws of cosmic wisdom, that everything happens for a reason and as such, proverbial slogans can be created out of everything that happens, because everything that happens is an expression of the will and active intervention of God.
Well, everything, that is except what happened to Job. For as wisdom ideology had it, "bad things never happen to good people." This was a given, one of the immutable cosmic laws of divine wisdom as ordained by God. To question this premise was to bring into question the entire superstructure of wisdom ideology built upon these dogmatic foundations.
More reading and studies can also be found at the following links
http://www.enlightener.org/JobA.htm
What do you think??
Chat with Anthony Live on Google or AIM!