The primary theme behind Job’s friends’ teaching is that suffering is always the result of some hidden sin, as if every headache were a divine slap on the wrist. Their logic is neat, predictable, and completely unsatisfying when life refuses to cooperate. But in Elihu’s speech to Job and the three friends, he offers a more thoughtful explanation. He suggests another possible reason God allows hardship: troubles get our attention. In Job 36:15, Elihu explains, “He delivers the afflicted by their affliction and opens their ear by adversity.” In other words, suffering itself can become the very means of rescue, like an alarm clock set by God, although admittedly one without a snooze button. Elihu recognizes what Job’s friends do not: pain can be purposeful, not merely punitive, and that idea quietly reshapes how we look at our hardest days.
We understand this pattern in everyday life, even if we do not always welcome it. Physical pain, while unpleasant, often serves us well. A writer once noted that pain “grabs our attention, making it difficult to concentrate on other tasks,” which is exactly what we want when our hand meets a hot stove. It reroutes our focus from the recipe to the emergency. But when discomfort lingers without clear purpose, it becomes an irritation that refuses to leave, like a smoke alarm that chirps at two in the morning for no obvious reason. In a similar way, God uses emotional and spiritual pain to redirect our hearts when nothing else will. David Watson, the minister from England who died of cancer before his reflections were published, wrote, “It is sometimes only through suffering that we begin to listen to God. Our natural pride and self-confidence have to be stripped painfully away.” He admitted he never understood why God allowed his illness, but he could hear God’s voice more clearly because of it. C. S. Lewis went further, famously calling pain “God’s megaphone.” Moses needed years in the wilderness to listen. Paul needed blindness on the Damascus road. We tend to prefer gentler methods, but we often hear more clearly when life grows quiet in uncomfortable ways.
Our connection to Jesus becomes clear when we remember that He, too, speaks through suffering, not only ours but His own. The New Testament tells us, “He learned obedience from what he suffered” (Hebrews 5:8). That verse is not easy to absorb, and it invites a slower, more careful reading. Jesus does not remain distant from human pain; He steps directly into it. When we hurt, He understands in a way that is not theoretical. When pain draws us toward God, it draws us toward Him. Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice” (John 10:27), and sometimes adversity clears our ears in ways comfort never could. As Elihu observed long ago, “God delivers the afflicted by their affliction and opens their ear by adversity.” Through suffering, Jesus meets us where we are and turns even our hardest moments into places where His voice can be heard more clearly.