Wouldn't we all like to get beyond suffering! Ancient literature has a story about a man who did. It's quite a story complete with love, pain, drama, suffering, and resolve. God even shows up! Yep! Job (the main character--pronounced with a long o) asks God to vindicate him and He does! Imagine that! In person! God comes to vindicate His friend, but it takes time. In the meantime his friends all tell him he's crazy, it won't happen; that his suffering comes from God for something he's done. Job maintains he has done nothing to merit this suffering, and they mock him. Job doesn't know why it's happening, but you as the reader will. Job doesn't know if God will come, but now you as the reader do. This is probably the oldest story ever told and preserved. Yes, written even before Genesis! The book of Job in the Bible is considered one of the greatest works of literature and antiquity. Controversy surrounds its date and authorship, but after researching it, I am convinced that Moses wrote it and probably before Genesis. This is the story Moses heard from Job's kids or Jethro, simplified and condensed from his very structured poetry, written in prose because I wanted it to be readily understandable, so the reader isn't bogged down in difficult antiquated imagery and wording. Most of it is a lively debate between Job and four friends about why we suffer and what God is like--two of the oldest, most debated questions of all time. AND it answers many more questions, such as: Does God want a relationship with us? What is the most important thing in life? Is God in charge? How do we know? Where does suffering come from? Does suffering have purpose and meaning? Is there a reason for it? And will God reward us for our suffering? Watch and listen as God bets on Job's friendship, integrity and loyalty against Satan, the accuser and tester of humans. Be amazed at God's appearance and how He handles the whole thing with power and grace.
About the Author: "If there is a loving God, why did all those horrible things happen to me as a child?" was the most frequent question Arla Caraboolad was asked in her first teaching position. She was 22. The setting was the California prison for women. The question began a search for answers. How much was God involved in life on earth? Was He responsible for the bad that happened to us as well as the good? What was "evil" really? How much of it came from us, and how much from somewhere else? How much was God responsible? Many years as a parent and step-parent and twenty-five years as a Family-Systems Therapist have aided that exploration. Because God was real to her, and important, and because questions about life and self are usually all tangled up with questions about God, her need-to-know grew. Forty years later this search and research have formed a background for writing this series, and especially this book on suffering. But fifty years as a Bible student, seventeen of them formal studies, have constructed the platform.