The man's life was a disaster. Through an astounding series of events, he had lost his fortune. His children had been killed in a tornado. And now his health was falling apart because of a dreaded disease that made him suspect in the community. Where was God?

A Genuinely Good Man

The man had been a faithful worshiper all his life. How could this happen to him? Did he somehow deserve it?

The man's name was Job.

The book of Job, in the middle of the Bible, not only contains some of the world's most beautiful literature but tells the story of us all. Job's lamentations, thousands of years old, reflect the confusion and abandonment we still feel when life goes awry and God seems to have disappeared.

Job asks the question we all have asked: “Why me, God?”

That question has been answered many ways. In traditional interpretations, God was testing Job's faith. Job's friends believed he was being punished for sin. But in fact, Job never received an answer to the question, “Why?” He learned to live with the mystery of God's creation. …

Miserable Comforters
His friends tried to help, but they said all the wrong things, offering glib platitudes—the same slogans Job had used to try to comfort people in the past. “Those who plow iniquity and sow trouble reap the same,” his friend Eliphaz chided him (Job 4:8).

The updated version sounds equally unsympathetic. What was in your consciousness that attracted this to you? It's the law of cause and effect, you know.

“How happy is the one whom God reproves; therefore do not despise the discipline of the Almighty,” Eliphaz continued (Job 5:17). Hey, Job, this is a gift! What an opportunity for growth! …

Why Me, God?

To their alarm, Job argued that he had done nothing to bring about his misfortune and angrily demanded to know why God let this happen. He wanted to die.

“I loathe my life,” Job wailed. “I will give free utterance to my complaint; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul…. Why did you bring me forth from the womb? Would that I had died before any eye had seen me. … Let me alone that I may find a little comfort” (Job 10:1, 18, 20).

Job was convinced that God was raining terror on him deliberately and unfairly. “I was at ease, and he broke me in two; he seized me by the neck and dashed me to pieces” (Job 16:12).

Job wanted to argue his innocence before God. “Oh that I knew where I might find him, that I might come eve to his dwelling! I would lay my case before him. … I would learn what he could answer me, and understand what he would say to me” (Job 23:3-5).

Why me, God? Job was demanding an answer.

Transformed by Unexpected Words
Then a young bystander spoke up. His name was Elihu. Elihu apologized for interrupting Job and his learned friends, but he couldn't stand to hear Job justifying himself while his friends gave bad advice. Elihu's words were stunning.

He suggested that God could be found within.  “Truly it is the spirit in a mortal, the breath of the Almighty, that makes for understanding,” Elihu said (Job 32:8).

Jesus emphasized the same idea later, that the kingdom of God is within each human, each divine child of God.

Job finally began to understand the futility of searching for God up in the sky somewhere. Turning within for divine guidance, he was able to hear the voice of God. He relented in his self-righteousness and forgave his unhelpful friends. He also understood the futility of needing to know why things happen as they do and accepted the unfathomable magnificence of God's creation.

“I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know,” Job said (Job 42:3). In the end, Job's health was restored. He was granted ten new children, and his fortune doubled.

The turning point for Job came through the words of a stranger. Elihu never introduced himself and apparently was never heard from again. But Job was changed forever.

God in the Stranger
Such divine mystery happens to us often; a stranger enters our lives as the Holy Spirit, then vanishes.

A man and woman, now dating seriously, say they were introduced at church by a woman each of them thought the other knew. Turns out neither of them knew her, and they have never seen her again.

A young athlete involved in an auto accident remembers the stranger who held his hand until the ambulance arrived, asking questions to keep the youth conscious. He never knew the man's name.

A man mugged and beaten by robbers and left in a ditch to die, probably never realized that a Samaritan, an outcast, saved his life and paid for his care at a local inn.

When a stranger renders aid or comfort or offers wisdom, we are experiencing God. God loves us all the time, but when God needs a voice or hands or feet, God has none but our own.

Watch for the stranger in your life. Listen to the stranger.
 

As a political editor, Ellen Debenport traveled throughout the country to report on presidential campaigns and to write about social issues. Ordained by the Association of Unity Churches International in 1999, she served as CEO and senior minister of Unity Church of Dallas and now sits on the board at Unity School of Christianity. For more information on her speaking schedule and keynote addresses, visit www.ellendebenport.com.

This excerpted article originally appeared in Unity Magazine.