Have you ever felt that everything and everyone is against you? Sometimes I get the feeling the whole world is against me too. However, deep down, I know that is not true. Some of the smaller countries are neutral. That thought has occasionally made me smile at my own dramatic conclusions. The lead character in the Book of Job had more reason than anyone to feel that all creation had turned on him. As I read his dialogue with God and his friends, he expresses a deep sense of isolation and despair. He said, “What I always feared has happened to me. What I dreaded has come true. I have no peace, no quietness. I have no rest; only trouble comes” (Job 3:25-26). At times I have thought similarly. Whatever defeatist thinking we have entertained, he also entertained. He exclaimed of God, “He has kindled his wrath against me and counts me as his adversary.” Job speaks with the honesty of a wounded heart, and in that honesty we recognize ourselves.
What Job learned through his suffering is that when God allows suffering in our lives, it will always work out for good. Paul wrote, “All things work together for good” in the lives of those who trust God (Romans 8:28). I have often needed that reminder when circumstances did not follow my carefully arranged plans. The apostle also assures us, “None of the trials which have come upon you is more than a human being can stand… God will not let you be put to the test beyond your strength” (1 Corinthians 10:13). That promise does not erase the difficulty of the moment, but it steadies the heart. God’s intent in our suffering is always to bring about something good. He is never against us. His purposes may puzzle us, but His goodness does not waver, even when our perspective does.
There is, however, someone who truly is against us. The Scriptures call him our adversary. “Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion” (1 Peter 5:8). His goal is to harm and to weaken our confidence in God’s goodness. He uses suffering as a tool to persuade us that God does not care. This was his strategy with Job and even with humanity in the garden. Yet Christ came to reveal the Father’s heart and to defeat our adversary. Jesus said, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life” (John 10:10). Through His death and resurrection, He exposed the difference between God’s intentions and the enemy’s schemes, assuring us that even in hardship, God is for us and working good beyond what we can see.