Hi there and welcome to today's Our Daily Bread.

I've called today's reading A Purpose in Suffering.

I'm Sheridan Boise.

So what you're saying is, it may not be my fault.

The woman's words took me by surprise. Having been a guest

speaker at her church, we were now discussing what I'd shared that morning. I have a chronic

illness, she explained, and I have prayed, fasted, confess my sins, and done everything else I was

told to do to be healed.

But I'm still sick, so I thought I was to blame.

I felt sad at that woman's confession.

Having been given a spiritual formula to fix her problem,

she had blamed herself when the formula hadn't worked.

Even worse, this formulaic approach to suffering

was disproved generations ago. Simply put, this old formula says that if you're suffering,

you must have sinned. When Job tragically lost his livestock, children and health,

his friends used the formula on him.

Who, being innocent, has ever perished?

Elifaz said in Job, Chapter 4, suspecting Job's guilt.

In Chapter 8, Bill Dad even told Job that his children only died because they had sinned.

Ignorant of the real cause of Job's calamities, they tormented him with simplistic reasons for his pain, later receiving God's rebuke. Suffering is a part of living in a fallen

world. Like Job, it can happen for reasons we may never know. But God has a purpose for you

that goes beyond the pain you endure. Don't be

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