It’s a wisdom that says, I know that trouble will come. As it came to Job, as it came to Jesus, it will come to me. But God has said, ‘I will be with you. I will never forsake you. And I will redeem all things. This is not the end.’  “All things work together for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28). God does not want us to live in denial of trouble—not of ours nor of those near us. 

There are coyotes in Pennsylvania. Not just upstate, rural, Potter County coyotes, but also a growing population of urban and suburban coyotes. In counties wiped clean of carnivores a hundred years ago or more, in the land of Walgreens and Wendy’s, coyotes have slunk in after dark and made themselves at home. And apparently (this defies every logic of the suburban mind), Pennsylvania coyotes, interbred with ill-tempered Canadian wolves, are even bigger than Montana coyotes or South Dakota coyotes. So people say.

I have lived in the Philadelphia suburbs for most of my 55 years and had never seen a coyote. Until I did. At 10:00 at night, within the city limits, lit up by my headlights, I saw a coyote trotting down a residential street. It disappeared into the dark, but all doubt was removed: they are here. This is a thing.

Wild carnivorous animals live, not just “out there” somewhere, but here, near me.

Making Sense of Adversity

In a similar way, our lives and the lives of those close to us are not immune to adversity or danger. When trouble comes, it can leave us reeling, unsure how to make sense of what happened and why. This shock and bewilderment isn’t a new phenomenon. In the book of Job, three friends come to sit with Job, a righteous man who, in a whirlwind of sudden tragedies, has experienced both the complete loss of his family and also total financial ruin. It’s a disaster beyond words, and for a week the friends have the good sense not to speak. But then one of them cannot help himself anymore. “As I have observed,”he says, “those who sow trouble reap it”(4:8 NIV).  This man, trying to make sense of the horror of what had happened to his friend, had come to what seemed to him the only logical conclusion: Job must have done something terrible to make it happen. “I’m just sayin’ . . . ”

This friend’s assumption mirrors a common way that people interpret trouble and suffering: it happens to people who have it coming. Tragedies don’t come out of nowhere, they reason. Job takes in what his friends say and feels the insult added to his injury, telling them that they have withheld kindness from a friend (6:14). “You too have proved to be of no help; you see something dreadful and are afraid” (6:21).

You see something dreadful and are afraid. It’s a good way to interpret the failure of friendship that suffering people often experience. It’s as if a coyote has been spotted in the neighborhood, and, in denial, people begin to inch away. They studiously avoid eye contact. They see calamity happen to someone close and often instinctively back up. Why? This thing that you have experienced is terrifying to me. It’s come too close. 

Read More