Job 1:13-15, 18-19 “One day when Job’s sons and daughters were feasting and drinking wine at the oldest brother’s house, a messenger came to Job and said, ‘The oxen were plowing and the donkeys were grazing nearby, and the Sabeans attacked and carried them off. They put the servants to the sword, and I am the only who has escaped to tell you!’ … While he was still speaking, yet another messenger came and said, ‘Your sons and daughters were feasting and drinking wine at the oldest brother’s house, when suddenly a mighty wind swept in from the desert and struck the four corners of the house. It collapsed on them and they are dead, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!’”

Job’s story reminds me of a line my Russian history professor kept repeating through the course. “Just when you think it has gotten as bad as it can get, it gets a little worse.” One man can’t finish telling his bad news before the next one comes and interrupts him with more. At first, it might be hard to imagine how anyone could suffer a more painful day of loss than Job. His suffering seems extraordinary.

But what happened to him was less rare in the scope of his loss and depth of his pain than we might wish. To quote from Wesley, the hero of one of my favorite movies, The Princess Bride, “Life is pain, highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.” Maybe we won’t suffer loss as bad as Job’s. Maybe we will suffer worse. My point is, that’s not what makes the suffering of God’s people extraordinary. Many, many people suffer more than we do.

No, while our suffering, real as it might be, is mostly ordinary in terms of its scope and depth, it is extraordinary in terms of its purpose. As people of God, our suffering has meaning and purpose that cannot be applied to everyone. Here we have to pick up some of the context of Job’s story I did not read before. Do you remember why the Lord let this happen to him? Satan came to God and questioned Job’s godliness and faithfulness, denied it really. He accused Job of being a fair-weather fan. The only reason he was so good is that God had blessed his life so richly. “Strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face,” the devil claims. So the devil has a purpose in our suffering. He wants to see us fall. He wants to ruin us spiritually.

That being the case, should it surprise us when so many of the ungodly people in our world do so well? The world’s wealthiest are not Bible-believing Christians, by and large. The celebrities and the business moguls are rarely people of faith. They live and talk like the spiritually dead people they are.

This all makes perfect sense. The devil has no reason to make their lives uncomfortable, other than to satisfy his twisted pleasure in human suffering. He doesn’t need to ruin these people spiritually. They are already ruined. He is happy to encourage them on their present path toward hell. So let’s not envy them, or worse yet, aspire to be like them.

God’s purpose, however, makes our suffering extraordinary. He allows it for our good. In Job’s case, the Lord was actually defending Job’s sullied reputation. He let him suffer to let his faith and witness shine. At first, we see, that faith shined brightly.

More than this, the Lord uses our suffering to train and discipline his people. By discipline we mean more than the kind of “correction” a parent applies to a child though pain of one sort or another, a divine spanking. Sometimes that is involved as well. But this is discipline more like the kind a coach uses to train his players. Or think about the child learning to ride a bike. The training wheels were necessary at first. Eventually, they become a crutch and get in the way of improvement. They may mask the level of mastery our cyclist in training has achieved. So off they come.

The many blessings with which the Lord had surrounded Job in his life were like training wheels for his faith. It was time to take them away, and see how far Job’s faith had come, and let it grow and strengthen without the soft life that propped it up before. This is what makes our suffering extraordinary as God’s people. God is working great things for us, even when the suffering tests our limits. It is why, even at its most difficult, the life we lead is an extraordinary life.