Suffering Is The Test Of Freedom

30 September 2026  Job 9:1-12,14-16

“How then can I answer Him, choosing my words with Him?”  (Job 9:14)     

The Book of Job is the Old Testament’s reverent and solemn meditation on the consequences of freedom in God’s world. It opens with God’s admiration for Job: “There is no one like him upon the earth, a blameless and upright man who fears God and turns from evil” (1:8). God clearly loves Job.

Suffering is the great test of freedom. Will we choose the good even when all the incentives to do good have vanished? When we look round upon a universe from which every trace of God has disappeared, will we still obey?

But Satan was not having any of that: “Does Job fear God for nothing?” (1:9). Satan points out that Job’s whole life is on rails that lead only to goodness, blessing and reward.

He has never had to make a decision for good; his life instead has been the irresistible outworking of a factory-installed program. But take away the rails, leave Job vulnerable to all the influences and powers of the world (including Satan), and Job will have a choice to make. Will he choose God when the incentives are no longer there? Satan doesn’t think so: “Stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face” (1:11).

Satan’s is the challenge of true relationship, true freedom. He dares God to have a real relationship with Job. Satan says to God, in essence, “You admire Job the way you admire a chair you’ve made – he’s quite beautiful, but you no more have a relationship with him than you do with your furniture. Will you let Job be truly free to choose you, absent the incentives to good behavior? Will you dare to see if Job will choose the good simply because it is good? Are you willing to take the chance that Job may choose the path of least resistance?” The choices Satan dares God with are the terms of every real relationship. They are the preconditions for all authentic integrity. Apart from these choices, there are no real relationships, but only varying degrees of manipulation – lives on rails. Apart from these choices there is no integrity, but only factory-formatted hard drives where souls ought to be. To have a real relationship, God must leave Job free to inflict and experience pain. For Job to have real integrity, God must leave him free to be vicious, to blow his problems away, or blow himself away (the latter was the advice of Mrs. Job, who said to her husband, “Curse God and die. Get it over with” – 2:9). God wanted a relationship with Job, as He wants a relationship with us all. We are persons, not furniture, so He left Job free – and vulnerable.

Suffering is the great test of freedom. Will we choose the good even when all the incentives to do good have vanished? When we look round upon a universe from which every trace of God has disappeared, will we still obey?

So, when God clears Satan’s path and forces Job to decide for the good simply because it is good, at first Job does not know what to say: “How then can I answer Him, choosing my words with Him?” (9:14). He knows his suffering is out of all proportion to reason, and can’t comprehend why it is happening. He doesn’t even know where God is to ask Him: “Behold, He passes by me, and I see Him not; He moves on, but I do not perceive Him” (9:11). Does the Good still exist? Is it still there? These are the questions of every person in pain, especially those who have already experienced the Good. These are the anguished words of real freedom.

This is where Job begins because it is where we all begin when we suffer. It is not where he ends. There are 33 chapters left. Stop by again tomorrow.