Job, Jeremiah, Jesus, and You

A look at Jeremiah, Job, and Jesus for the ones who are suffering today.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about the stark contrast between the end of Job’s life and the end of Jeremiah’s life.

Both of these men suffered tremendously.

Job lost everything. His family. His possessions. His health. His friends were no good. His wife wasn’t all that encouraging. He was miserable, and his prayers weren’t being answered for much of his time suffering.

Jeremiah didn’t necessarily lose everything earthly, but at the call of God, He lost all autonomy over His life. He spoke when He was told to say, and often, His speaking was met with much hostility. He was mocked, ridiculed, and even imprisoned on a few occasions.

Both of these guys suffered greatly.

Untrue accusations.
Health problems.
Unhelpful friends.
Oppression from influential people.
Mocked for trying to stay faithful to Yahweh.
Both experienced and expressed much anguish.

Much of the literature in Job is him lamenting his tragedy and suffering.

Jeremiah wrote the Book of Lamentations and is known as the weeping prophet.

However, it’s the end of there life that brings me to this question…

How do we know when suffering ends?

The end of Job’s suffering is recorded for us.

Job’s health, possessions, family, and friends are restored. In fact, the restoration brings double what he had prior to his suffering. Yahweh finds Job’s heart of repentance pleasing, and Job is blessed tremendously.

Church tradition holds that Jeremiah’s end to suffering was very different. After being exiled to Egypt with the rest of his people, he continued to speak God’s Word and was eventually stoned to death. Was Jeremiah not faithful?

For both men, the suffering ended—but the suffering ended very differently.

Chances are, if you’ve walked through suffering and seen the end of that suffering, you know it can end 1,000 different ways.

Sometimes, it ends with a new job and higher income.
Sometimes, it ends with bankruptcy.

Sometimes, it ends with better-than-ever health.
Sometimes, it ends with chronic pain.

Sometimes, it ends with healthy family relationships.
Sometimes, it ends with a broken family tree.

We're left to wonder when our suffering ends with the latter of these three examples: Does God not care? Was I not faithful enough? Did I do something wrong?

This is the best I can discern.

The best I can tell from my scripture reading is that there is no formula to end our suffering on earth with a blessing. It’s impossible to predict how our suffering will end.

Even in the Bible, there are so many varying results. Some people are blessed. Some people are partially blessed. Some people are destroyed.

Therefore, if we’re in the middle of suffering and spend all our time begging God for our suffering to end in a tangible blessing like Job had, there’s a great chance we’ll be disappointed.

God can do whatever He wants, however He wants, whenever He wants.

But God promises a better future blessing.

There was another man who suffered greatly.

His name was Jesus.

Jesus, according to Isaiah 53, was a man of sorrows stricken with grief. His suffering far surpassed everyone else’s suffering. And how did His suffering end?

With death. Brutal death.

However, here’s what Philippians 2 says about Him.

And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
—Philippians 2:8-11

Because of His faithful obedience, He was highly exalted. He was given all authority in heaven, on earth, and under the earth.

See, here’s the thing. There’s no way to know how our suffering will end on earth when we’re smack dab in the middle of it. But here’s what we can know:

God promises to blow us away with our reward in heaven if we stay faithful.

I think that’s partially why Job was blessed the way he was. God wanted to use his life as an example. We see his earthly blessing far surpass anything he could imagine because God wants us to know that our heavenly blessing will far surpass anything we can imagine.

Here’s what Paul says:

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.
—Romans 8:18

There are two promises we can hold onto while suffering.

1. Yahweh is with us.

2. Yahweh will reward us if we stay faithful.

Both promises bring great joy.
Both promises lift our heads high.
Both promises restore our souls.
Both promises turn our eyes toward trusting God.

Yahweh gets to decide what the reward looks like on earth. Who knows what He will do? His ways are higher than our ways.

But He also gets to decide what the reward looks like in heaven. And according to Revelation, that’s a reward we don’t want to miss out on. It’s a reward we should keep pressing forward for because we know nothing on earth can compare to that reward.

If you find yourself in a place of suffering, don’t give up on following Jesus and remaining radically faithful.

It only gets better for us.

—Brandon

ps. I’ve scrubbed my site of “paid memberships” for the time being. I’m asking the Lord what this should look like but currently all paid memberships are paused.

I’ve unlocked all previous posts and I’m currently promising nothing to paid subscribers. If you’d like to express financial gratitude for this post, you’re welcome to “Buy Me A Coffee” at the link on the button below.