God's Intended End

The child of God can rest in the knowledge God is good and has complete oversight of our lives.  We experience perfect peace when we realise everything we experience--good or bad--is with His knowledge and consent.  God is faithful to accomplish His redemptive purposes for all things in the life of a believer. What Joseph's brothers meant for evil by selling him as a slave, at the same time God intended the situation for good and saved many people alive.

I have witnessed many Christians who feel hopelessly "under attack" by Satan because circumstances of their lives are difficult.  I wonder:  how might these same circumstances be viewed if we knew they were God's doing?  The Bible tells us plainly Job faced attacks from Satan himself, yet Job never credited Satan for doing anything.  Part of Job's wondering and struggle was because he was convinced God was behind the good and evil he experienced.  In profound grief of grave personal loss Job 1:20-21 says, "Then Job arose, tore his robe, and shaved his head; and he fell to the ground and worshiped. ²¹ And he said: "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return there. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD."  Job did not see himself at the mercy of Satan but of the almighty God.

After Satan plundered Job of his wealth and children, he acquired permission from God to afflict Job's health.  God's only restriction was Job's life be preserved.  Satan covered Job with boils that itched terribly, and when he was miserable his wife scornfully told him to "Curse God and die."  Consider the response of Job in Job 2:10:  "But he said to her, "You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?" In all this Job did not sin with his lips."  Job did not blame Satan, even though he was directly involved in his suffering.  He saw his pains and suffering as from the hand of God Himself, and in faith remained submissive before God in worship.

Like all who suffer pain, Job did much soul-searching during his season of manifold torment.  He had lost his children, wealth, health and support of his wife and friends.  It seemed God Himself had turned against him and for the life of Job he could not figure out why such terrible things had befallen him.  Job claimed the arrows of the Almighty had pierced him, and the terrors of God were set in array against him (Job 6:4)  Not once did Job attribute any of his pains to satanic attack because he realised his life, health and future was entirely in God's hands.  At the end of the book of Job God revealed Himself and did not answer the questions which burned in Job's mind about why he was made to suffer so.  In the end Job was restored to health and his many remaining years were more blessed by God than his beginning (Job 42:10-13).

It is in the new Testament where we gain insight into God's purposes behind the suffering He allowed Job to endure in James 5:10-11:  "My brethren, take the prophets, who spoke in the name of the Lord, as an example of suffering and patience. ¹¹ Indeed we count them blessed who endure. You have heard of the perseverance of Job and seen the end intended by the Lord--that the Lord is very compassionate and merciful."  Job's friends imagined God was punishing Job for sins he committed in the past, but God allowed Job to suffer so he and we could see the "end intended by the LORD" all along, that God is compassionate and merciful.  Satan was an instrument who intended to harm and destroy, yet God intended all Job's temporal suffering to accomplish His glorious, enduring purposes.  Instead of seeing painful circumstances as satanic attacks, how much better to view the painful situations of life as from the hands of a compassionate and merciful God who blesses all who endure in faith.