Job: Our Exemplar Amidst Trials and Tribulations

I maintain a list of subjects that may lend themselves for future blog writings. For months, the subject of adversity has been on that list. Recently, I was asked to teach the Gospel Doctrine lesson on Job. What a fitting opportunity to consider the role of adversity in our lives.

This being a world-wide Church, we should consider that our brothers and sisters around the world are living in most of the possible national societies, and many of them are experiencing the effects of political, military, economic, and social upheavals. Indeed, some of the world’s societies are laboring under multiple of these debilitating crises. Closer to home, the present economic recession must have at least touched everyone of our citizens in some minor way. For many individuals and families, the ramifications of this economic downturn have been devastating. When to these circumstances we add the normal and expected personal crises resulting from accidents, illness, and death, the results for those so effected are personal trials coming in layers. If to this mix we add the sorrows of personal relationships gone wrong, we may rightfully speak of people in these times as experiencing trials and tribulations.

But as severe as our individual tests are or will be, few if any of us will ever face trials the likes of which befell Job. Here was an individual the Lord, Himself, declared to be a “perfect and upright” man (Job 1:1 & 8). And this favorable judgment is all the more revealing when we come to understand that Job possessed great personal wealth and secular power. Princes and nobles were apparently his inferiors (Job 29:9-11), and the services he provided to his fellow citizens ran the gamut from those of social welfare to law enforcement (Job 29:12-17). At the nadir of his agony, he had suffered, save for his wife, the loss of his entire family. His sources of income were taken from him, and he was cast out by his friends to exist alone suffering unimaginable pain from physical, mental, and spiritual torment. He came to view death as a means of welcome relief from his misery. However, through all of this, “Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly” (Job 1:22).

Because Job managed to survive this period of extreme testing with such success and dignity, he provides for us a great example of how we ought to deal with the trials and tribulations we will encounter during our mortal probation. Job revealed three personal traits that were key to his success. First, “trust in the Lord.” “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him: but I will maintain mine own ways before him” (Job 13:15). Second, Job’s testimony of the Savior remained firm. “For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another” (Job 19:25-27). Third, through his suffering, Job never lost his integrity. “As God liveth, who hath taken away my judgment; and the Almighty, who hath vexed my soul; All the while my breath is in me, and the spirit of God is in my nostrils; My lips shall not speak wickedness, nor my tongue utter deceit. God forbid that I should justify you: till I die I will not remove mine integrity from me” (Job 27:2-5). Integrity, taught Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin, is “always doing what is right and good, regardless of the immediate consequences. It means being righteous from the very depth of our soul, not only in our actions but, more important, in our thoughts and in our hearts. Personal integrity implies such trustworthiness and incorruptibility that we are incapable of being false to a trust or covenant” (Conference Report, April 1990, 38).

While the question is often asked, I do not see any real purpose in discussing here the sources from which our trials may come. Our reality is that trials and tribulations assuredly will come to each of us if our days on this earth are prolonged. Thus to my way of thinking, spending much time contemplating their possible sources or even asking the question “Why me?” are not really productive pastimes. Elder Richard G. Scott said: “When you face adversity, you can be led to ask many questions. Some serve a useful purpose; others do not. To ask, Why does this have to happen to me? Why do I have to suffer this now? What have I done to cause this? will lead you into blind alleys. It really does no good to ask questions that reflect opposition to the will of God. Rather ask, What am I to do? What am I to learn from this experience? What am I to change? Whom am I to help?” (Elder Richard G. Scott, Conference Report, Oct. 1995, 18).

As we face the trials of life, we will be able to better maintain our desired course of conduct if we apply the wisdom gleaned from Job’s experience. We should “trust in the Lord,” maintain a strong testimony of Christ and of His mission as they apply to us, and never lose our integrity concerning those principles we know to be true.

In the second of Mormon’s epistles to his son, Moroni, Mormon affirms a form of conduct that greatly applies during times of tribulation. “And now, my beloved son, notwithstanding their hardness, let us labor diligently; for if we should cease to labor, we should be brought under condemnation; for we have a labor to perform whilst in this tabernacle of clay, that we may conquer the enemy of all righteousness, and rest our souls in the kingdom of god” (Moroni 9:6). Both Job and Mormon understood that quitting was not an acceptable option. No matter how desperate our situation may become, our only course must be the one that carries us forward toward the fulfillment of our eternal potential. If the matter comes down to the need that we just keep putting one foot ahead of the other, then that is what we do. Quitting is not an option.