Good Monday morning. Welcome back to the podcast. We are starting this new week deep in Job. If you're reading the Navigator's Bible Reading Plan with us. If so, you're in Job 36 versus 1 to 15 today, which includes a line that raised two perplexing questions in the mind of Chloe, a listener.

Pastor John, hello, and thank you for APJ. It is a wonderful resource, she writes. Thank you, Chloe.

My question for you is about a verse in Job from the mouth of eloquent Elihu. I know you

trust what Elihu says based on what I heard you say in APJ's 1488 and 1867. Yes, and I'll insert here too, what you just

said last month, Pastor John, in APJ 2099 as well. My questions for you are about Elihu's claim in Job 3615.

He, God, delivers the afflicted by their affliction and opens their ear by adversity. Two questions for you.

First, how does God deliver us from our affliction through our affliction? And second, what kinds of

suffering would God use in our own lives to get our attention today? For the believer,

will there be any missing it when it comes into our lives when God is trying to

open our ears by it is it possible for us to miss it?

Whenever I speak or write about affliction and suffering and pain, I know that I am treading

very delicate ground because what millions of people experience in their

pain is worse than anything I've ever known. And I must be so careful not to be lighthearted

or breezy or facile or simplistic. I recall one time being in the hospital after a

surgery, my own surgery, when the nurses told me, now tell us when the pain becomes unmanageable

and we'll give you something to help you with it. So I decided late one

night that I'm going to see how far this goes. I'm going to see how far I can take it before I

ask for any painkiller. And I lay there for several hours just watching it mount. You know,

they say, give me a one to ten. Yeah. It's moving from three to five to six.

And there came a point where I pushed a button and I asked a nurse for relief.

And she gave me something and within 15 or 20 minutes it was over.

And I'm just so aware millions and millions of people around the world

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