I see pieces written, stating that God is deliberately putting people through trials to strengthen them. I struggle with that. That's not the God I know. My God is good. He is love. He is light! There is no darkness in him! I cannot see him creating hard situations for us, just to watch us struggle and hopefully come through positively!
In trying to figure this out, my mind was drawn to when Jesus felt compelled by God's Spirit to head into the wilderness. He spent 40 days in this wild place, without food to sustain him, hanging onto his Father with all his might, in order to withstand the wiles of Satan who was determined to make him fail.
Notice, it was not God who "tested" him. While he was led apart from the crowds, in order to consolidate the role he was now undertaking, it was Satan who set up the trials to test him. God's role was in continuing to be his rock and sustainer. While he had to allow the struggles Jesus went through, in order to avoid Satan's charges of unfair advantage, God did not cause them. And when the tests were over, God's angels were there, nurturing him back to wholeness!
And the same is true in the story of Job! Challenged in regard to Job's faithfulness only being due to the way God always blessed him, God had to allow Satan to move, to prove him wrong. He did set limits - Satan was not to take Job's life! But again, it was not God who caused Job's miseries. It was the one who hates, not the one who loves, who did that! When Satan failed in causing Job to turn against his God, God restored all that Satan had taken from him, and more!
Now I know it seems a fine line between allowing something to happen, and actually causing it. But if we read the story as a whole, we can see that God's intentions are that there will never be pain and misery again! For now, he has to allow Satan to work to show the darkness in him. We need to be able to see that clearly and understand. God's whole purpose throughout every story is towards the end game, where his reputation is restored and all creation desires to live under his umbrella of love, never allowing that force of evil to exist again.
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