Listen in the Midst of Suffering - Job 35-36

 Job 36:15-16 (ESV)

15 He delivers the afflicted by their affliction

and opens their ear by adversity.

16 He also allured you out of distress

into a broad place where there was no cramping,

and what was set on your table was full of fatness.

The above lines are from Elihu’s final speech to Job.   Remember, Elihu is the younger of Job’s four friends.   He has sat by listening to the other three try to convince Job that his suffering is due to his sin.   Elihu has not addressed why Job is suffering, unlike the others, however.   Elihu has focused on Job’s response to the suffering.  The above passage is giving Job one more tidbit about how God deals with both the wicked and the righteous.    God uses affliction, according to Elihu, to open their ears (their hearing) to recognize the movement of God in their lives.   Affliction, per Elihu, is a tool of God to examine and call attention to something God wants us to hear.   Elihu believes God is drawing us out of distress in order to give us a place of rest, a place of space, and a place of fatness.  God is using our affliction in life to call attention to His pleasures and offerings of life.  The contrast between verses 15 and 16, above, is meant to capture our attention.   In 15 Elihu tells us God is using affliction to get mankind to listen.   In 16 he is telling us that the affliction gives the backdrop for what God ultimately wants to do and that is to draw us away from it and put us a table he describes as full of fatness.    In our lives we have affliction.  It is for the purpose of grabbing out spiritual ears and listening for the blessings God wants to pour over us.   God does not want affliction for us.  He wants to bless us.  But we can’t have the blessing if we don’t respond properly to the affliction.  This seems to be Job’s challenge.  He has spent so much arguing his innocence in the suffering (and he was) that he missed hearing the message of God and the table full of fatness.   (In the remaining chapters of the book, Job will get that message.) If we are in affliction we are to perk up our ears and be ready to sit at the table God has prepared for us in the midst of that suffering.   

Psalms 23:5 (ESV)

You prepare a table before me

in the presence of my enemies;

you anoint my head with oil;

my cup overflows.