1. The conundrum

So, things are relatively okay in your life, even rosy. Perhaps you have love in your life, a great group of friends and family, a thriving career or business, excellent health, nothing much to complain, enjoying the good of the land. God has indeed been gracious to you. Job in the bible enjoyed such a kind of covering, evidenced by Satan's lamentations in Job 1:9-11. Satan complains that the hedge God has placed over Job and all that pertained to him had restricted him from visiting Job and rocking his life. Enter the devil into the scene and suddenly, like in Job's case, things start getting shaky in your life. The plum job, business, or income source dries up. The ensuing stench of poverty chases away all the friends you had. In severe cases, even your lover deserts you. God forbid you get illnesses that dig you deeper into debt and lack. And who is to say that satan won't stir your family against you as well, like he did to Joseph? As per our analogy so far, it's safe to make a premise that absence of God and presence of the devil equals a horrific life, storms, or wilderness. It's especially interesting when you are a staunch follower of Christ and yet all these things are happening to you. I found myself in the same conundrum and of course launched a spiritual offensive against the devil, whom I perceived to be the cause of my misery. Weeks turned into months and years, but the siege on my life wasn't going away. So, what gives?


2. The investigation

In Job's case and our aforementioned scenario, all fingers point to Satan as the chief tormentor. But that's the case when you go by sight and not by faith. Unbeknownst to Job and many Christians is that, a meeting in heaven commissioned the attack and that the attack had a seal of approval from the Almighty. In the case of the disciples caught in the middle of a storm, they were rocked until they questioned Jesus' concern for their well-being." Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” Mark 4:38. Clearly the Lord was present in their vessel, yet the storm was threatening their very existence. Going back to our earlier hypothesis, a contradiction now emerges. It's clear that it's possible for you to be in God's will and yet find yourself in a desert, a dry place or a storm, brought about or okayed by God Himself! The bible says in Psalms 107:24-27, “They saw what the Lord can do, his wonderful acts on the seas. He commanded, and a mighty wind began to blow and stirred up the waves. The ships were lifted high in the air and plunged down into the depths. In such danger, the sailors lost their courage; they stumbled and staggered like drunks— all their skill was useless.” It also says in Ezekiel 37:1," The hand of the Lord was on me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones.” It also says in Mathew 4:1,"Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil." The commonality in all these scriptures is the hand of God, not satan's, pushing the characters therein to uncomfortable situations. 


3. The reasons

Love,

So, why will the all-loving God allow traumatic events to besiege you? To answer this question, we have to start from recognizing God's nature, failure to which the serpent will take advantage of our lack of knowledge and make us see and believe that God is cruel. God is love, and the things he does for us are out of love. It is out of love that Christ suffered on the cross to take away the sins of man. It is also out of love that He chastens those He loves. So, it's no wonder the bible says all things are working for your good, even the tribulation! God's love allows the tribulation to achieve certain goals under His will. Outlined below are some reasons for love induced tribulation:-

i.) Salvation

1 Peter 3:18 says,"For indeed Christ died for sins once for all, the Just and Righteous for the unjust and unrighteous [the Innocent for the guilty] so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the Spirit.” His tribulation was authored by God according to Acts 2:23," this Man, when handed over [to the Roman authorities] according to the predetermined decision and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross and put to death by the hands of lawless and godless men.” Another individual who underwent tribulation for bringing salvation to others was Joseph. He was dumped into a well, sold into slavery wrongly persecuted and endured prison time to boot! He, however, assured his brothers that God was sending him before time to come save many people, Genesis 50:20, " You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.”

ii) Perfection

The Spirit can lead one into a wilderness season to be tested, just like Jesus in Mathew 4:1-11. Job's disastrous events were also meant to test him, his resolve and faith in God. The aim of such leading of the spirit is captured in James 1:2-5, “Consider it nothing but joy, my brothers, and sisters, whenever you fall into various trials. Be assured that the testing of your faith [through experience] produces endurance [leading to spiritual maturity, and inner peace]. And let endurance have its perfect result and do a thorough work so that you may be perfect and completely developed [in your faith], lacking in nothing."

iii) Creation of empathy for those suffering

When you find yourself coming down the ladder of life so to speak to a place in the middle of a valley full of dry bones like Ezekiel, perhaps you have been brought there by the Spirit of God to speak life to those bones. There's nothing like getting first-hand experience to what people are going through. It touches you, it creates compassion and empathy for those undergoing tribulation. Jesus also put down the gown of glory and put on the robe of flesh and literally came from up in heaven down to earth and the result of that is captured in Hebrews 4:15, "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.” When God lifted him up again and glorified him, he went back as an advocate of those he found down there, on the count of sharing in their experiences. The bible explains this in 2 Corinthians 1:4 when it says,"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God."

iv) To Encounter Him

Trouble has a way of reminding us about God. It has a way of intensifying our worship and seeking of God. Apostle Joshua Selman hilariously once said that you can find yourself conducting praise and worship on your own without the need of the worship team! When the hour of tribulation had come for Jesus, the bible notes in Luke 22:44, "And being in agony [deeply distressed and anguished; almost to the point of death], He prayed more intently; and His sweat became like drops of blood, falling down on the ground.” It is at the end of his tribulation that Job acknowledged he didn't really know God before the tribulation as he knew Him after the tribulation. “My ears had heard of you, but now my eyes have seen you.”
(Job 42:5). Jesus says in the beatitudes that it's a blessing when tribulation comes, for it draws you to God. “You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of, you, there is more of God and his rule. “You’re blessed when you feel you’ve lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you" (Mathew 5:3-4). “You’re blessed when your commitment to God provokes persecution. The persecution drives you even deeper into God’s kingdom."(Matthew 5:10).

V) Chastening

"No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.”(Hebrews 12:11). Sometimes as human beings we have missed the way and the love of God has pursued us into our iniquity and has initiated recovery measures to bring us back into the ways of our first love, the Lord our God. One of the mechanisms to pull us back into the fathers' house is tribulation. In the instance of the prodigal son, it is tribulation that brought him to his senses. Nobody advised him as the bible notes in Luke 15:17," But when he [finally] came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired men have more than enough food, while I am dying here of hunger!” Going back to my earlier personal example, I was busy trying to exorcise demons from my personal space, for I thought they were the cause of our financial tribulation. It was years later that the Holy Spirit put us on the loop of what was happening. In our efforts to seek God, God used that experience to shape our behaviors and introduce the fear of the Lord. This came by reading of the bible, taking its teachings seriously and implementing the same. Slowly, my wife and I had undergone serious character development. We shed our past fleshly sins and desires that led to frequent fights, selfishness and brought us to a point where all we want is what God desires and prescribes. A treacherous journey that has yielded incredible results in our life, and now we understand what he means in Hebrews 12:6,"because the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son.”


4. Take Away.

Our analysis has centered on Christians or believers undergoing strenuous times commissioned by God's love. Just like in Job's case, it's a controlled experiment, so to speak. But it's also true that Satan visits trouble on all humanity. It's especially grievous when satan does not have to ask for permission to afflict a person or rather when he finds no hedge around a person and has no limits to what he can do, as opposed to Job's case where he had express orders as to how far he can go. The real tragedy is when tribulation is not for righteousness sake or when it's not induced by God's love as Peter said in 1 Peter 3:14, "But even if you should suffer for the sake of righteousness [though it is not certain that you will], you are still blessed [happy, to be admired and favored by God]. Do not be afraid of their intimidating threats, nor be troubled or disturbed [by their opposition]”. The reason Job wasn't touched by satan was because of the hedge of protection that God had placed around him and all that pertained to him. In Job 1:1, we get a glimpse of why Job enjoyed this covering, to satan's dismay. It says, " There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job; and that man was blameless and upright, and one who feared God [with reverence] and abstained from and turned away from evil [because he honored God]. God Himself confirms this point in Job 1:8 ,"The Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered and reflected on My servant Job? For there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God [with reverence] and abstains from and turns away from evil [because he honors God].”

Therefore, the conclusion hereby is that tribulation shall come our way, the real question is where shall that trouble find you. Shall it find you under God's hedge of protection, or shall it find you outside the ark as the people during Noah's time? Shall trouble find you under the cover of righteousness, or shall it find you under wickedness? The good news is that in Christ, we have the cover of righteousness that deploys the hedge of God's protection. “ He made Christ who knew no sin to [judicially] be sin on our behalf, so that in Him, we would become the righteousness of God [that is, we would be made acceptable to Him and placed in a right relationship with Him by His gracious loving kindness] 2 Corinthians 5:21. This is where even though trouble comes, Christ says be of good cheer, for He has overcome the world (John 16:33). This is therefore a rallying cry to all. Let the rain not find you outside the ark. You can imagine what satan would have done to Job without limitations placed by God on the backdrop of Job's righteousness. The Lord full of grace offers the same umbrella of righteousness to all so that whoever believes in the son (Jesus Christ) shall not perish but have everlasting life. Romans 10:10, gives us the way to access this hedge of protection, procured by the righteousness of Christ. “ For with the heart, a person believes [in Christ as Savior] resulting in his justification [that is, being made righteous—being freed of the guilt of sin and made acceptable to God]; and with the mouth, he acknowledges and confesses [his faith openly], resulting in and confirming [his] salvation." So the question is not whether it's the devil or God fronting or allowing the trouble but rather, where shall trouble find you?