Why We Keep Moving Forward – Faith, Suffering l, and the Courage of Job
Over the course of my ministry, I’ve pastored more than 4,000 people. I’ve sat at bedsides, stood at gravesides, listened across coffee tables and hospital rooms. Among those I’ve known well, one thing is universally true: everyone suffers. Every person I’ve truly gotten to know has carried some kind of deep sorrow or pain—loss, illness, betrayal, regret, or fear.
And yet, in the face of this pain, I’ve witnessed something just as universal and far more mysterious: faith that endures. I’ve seen people continue to trust God, even when the road is dark. I’ve seen them draw meaning from their struggles, not just despite their suffering but often through it. I’ve seen them move forward with grace and hope—people whose faith wasn’t shattered by suffering, but shaped by it.
This persistent, life-affirming hope is not something new. It is part of a long, deep tradition—one we share with our Jewish brothers and sisters. From the ancient prophets to modern believers, Jews and Christians alike have somehow held onto a radical, stubborn belief that life is still good, and God is still present, even when everything seems to argue otherwise.
The Book of Job and the Terrible Beauty of Faith
Nowhere is this struggle more deeply explored than in the book of Job. The story is deceptively simple: a good man suffers for no discernible reason. Behind the scenes, we’re told of a strange wager between God and Satan—an arrangement that raises far more questions than it answers. Why would God allow this? How can such a test be justified? Why do the innocent suffer while the guilty often thrive?
The book offers no tidy solutions. In fact, it confronts us with questions that disturb and unsettle. Job is not given an explanation. Neither are we. Instead, he is met—finally—by the voice of God, not with answers, but with a vision: of the vast, wild, wonderful world that God has made, and the assurance that he is not alone in his pain.
In his book We Who Wrestle with God, Jordan Peterson captures the tension perfectly. Reflecting on Job’s trial, he writes:
“A stubborn, bitter, and prideful rebellion against the moral order of the universe and refusal to submit to the goodness of God is the most egregious, deepest, and counter-productive form of failure. That is most truly a failure of faith, on which life itself, let alone life more abundant, eternally and necessarily depends.”
This is a hard truth. When life becomes unbearable, when we are dealt pain without cause, it is entirely human to rage, to despair, to withdraw. And yet the witness of Job—and of millions like him across centuries—is this: it is better to hold on. Better to keep walking. Better to refuse the seductive call of bitterness and nihilism.
As Peterson puts it:
“It is much better, even under conditions of extreme, and apparently unjust suffering, to reaffirm our commitment to life more abundant, and to undergo the changes necessary to bear our terrible cross… The ultimate promise of the covenant, however, is that the Spirit of God, reflected in such radical acceptance, abides with us in our suffering and confrontation with evil. And what can withstand the person who has God truly on their side?”
Faith as a Way Forward, Not an Escape
What Job reveals, and what generations of faithful people have embodied, is that belief in the goodness of God and the world is not a conclusion we reach—it’s a decision we live. That decision cannot be proven. It cannot be scientifically demonstrated. In fact, as believers, we wrestle with many of the same objections to faith that atheists and agnostics do. We, too, see the chaos and the cruelty. But where others may see only absurdity, we insist on something more.
We affirm that faith is a better strategy than despair. That hope, though fragile, is stronger than cynicism. That trust, however battered, leads us somewhere real—while nihilism leads only back to ourselves and into isolation.
As Peterson notes with bold insight, “Job refuses, despite it all, to lose faith and to succumb to bitterness, resentment, and nihilism… He maintains his faith in himself, life, and God. Finally, Job has faith in himself and in God; but God also has faith in Job and in humankind in general. He is the Fatherly Spirit who insists that we can triumph over adversity, no matter how profound the challenge.”
This is the audacious heart of the Jewish and Christian story: not that we avoid suffering, but that we walk through it with a living hope. We may not understand the pain. We may question, grieve, and cry out. But we are not alone. And we are not abandoned.
A Covenant of Hope
So what does this mean for us now?
It means we can stop pretending that faith requires certainty. It doesn’t. It requires courage.
It means we can admit when life is hard—and still affirm that it is worth living.
It means we can weep with those who weep, and still dare to say that joy will come in the morning.
It means we can echo Job, not because we have all the answers, but because we still believe in the One who meets us in the whirlwind.
Faith doesn’t protect us from suffering. It roots us through it.
And in that, we find the quiet, resilient, defiant hope that has kept our people going for thousands of years—and will keep us going still.