“God’s mercy often rides to the door of our hearts on the black horse of affliction.”

• Charles Spurgeon

Affliction is not God’s abandonment but often His delivery system for mercy—awakening us, humbling us, and opening our hearts to graces we would otherwise resist.

James 5:11 says, “You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful.”

How did Job experience God’s compassion and mercy?

Job did not experience God’s mercy by being spared suffering—but by being met by God in it and restored by Him after it.

God sustained Job through steadfastness.

Job endured unimaginable loss, confusion, and physical pain, yet God preserved his faith. The mercy of God was not the absence of trial, but the grace to endure it.

God revealed Himself personally (Job 38–42).

When God finally speaks, He does not explain the “why,” but He reveals the Who. Job encounters the living God, which humbles, reorients, and comforts him. God’s compassion is seen in drawing near, not standing aloof.

God vindicated and restored Job.

God rebuked Job’s friends, affirmed Job’s honesty, and restored him—doubling what he had lost. This restoration wasn’t payment for endurance, but a gracious overflow of God’s mercy, showing that suffering was not the final word.

God’s purpose proved loving, not cruel.

James wants us to see that behind severe providences stands a Lord who is “full of compassion and mercy.” Job’s story reveals that God’s purposes are ultimately redemptive, even when hidden.

Have have you experienced the same as a follower of Jesus?

Like Job, we experience God’s compassion not by being spared every hardship, but by being upheld in them.

The grace to persevere, to pray when answers are delayed, and to keep trusting is mercy at work.

Like Job, we encounter God most profoundly in seasons of weakness, where explanations fail but His presence becomes precious.

Unlike Job, we interpret our suffering through the cross of Christ. In Jesus, we see compassion and mercy not merely promised, but poured out. God did not remain distant from suffering—He entered it.

Job teaches us that God is compassionate.

Jesus shows us how far that compassion goes.

So when James points us to Job, he is training our eyes to look past the pain to the heart of God—and as followers of Jesus, we can say with even greater confidence: the Lord is full of compassion and mercy, and He will have the final word.