In 2014, the former Governor of Virginia, a genuine Catholic Christian named Robert “Bob” McDonnell, was convicted of committing a federal offense while in office. Both as his friend and as a constitutional lawyer, I paid close attention to the case and attended the courtroom proceedings as I was able to, in order to support him and to pray.

The conviction was wrongful — and the court proceedings were woefully unjust, as our nation’s highest court just admitted. On June 27, 2016, a unanimous United States Supreme Court threw out McDonnell’s conviction. His years of struggle in courtrooms came to an end. However, the experience went beyond all the trials and appeals. It turned Governor Bob McDonnell’s life upside down and revealed the mettle of the man. It offers an important lesson about real faith.

Suffering and Struggle

I watched Bob suffer on several fronts. He had to bear the pain of public ridicule in this age where the propaganda media relish any opportunity to kick a citizen when he is down, especially a conservative or open Christian. The local press was brutally unfair in their treatment and national media mocked him with glee.

He lost “fair-weather friends,” the kind who are with you when everything is flourishing, claiming they have your back. They want to be in the photograph, smiling and enjoying identification with someone perceived as successful. However, when the storms come and the leaves begin to fall, they are quickly gone.

Bob endured another kind of suffering, from fellow Christians only too eager to tell him why all of this had befallen him. I call such people “the friends of Job.” Like Job in the Hebrew scriptures, Bob was wrongly accused and lost everything, but would never turn against God.

Such “friends” claim to have figured God all out and are only too willing to tell you why things are not going easily in your life when difficulties come. Some claim that following the Lord involves a formula. If you do it right, you will be successful. If not, you will suffer. They fail to understand the deeper meaning of the Cross of Jesus Christ.

Such people forget that those who embrace His Way will walk, as He did, along a rugged road. Christians follow a Savior whose self-giving embrace of death on a Cross was deemed by most to be His complete failure. These friends of Job are quick to judge when difficulties come into the lives of good people — as they inevitably do.

The Accuser Speaks

The Book of Job reminds us that the path to mature faith travels through adversity. The background of the Book is a dispute between Satan, whom the New Testament refers to as the “accuser” (Rev. 12:10), and God. Satan contends that Job serves God for the sake of rewards, not out of love. God sets out to prove Satan wrong by putting Job to the test. At the beginning of the book we find the meaning of authentic spirituality. After his own wife told him to “curse God and die” Job speaks these words of wisdom to her: “Are even you going to speak as senseless women do? We accept good things from God; and should we not accept evil?” (Job 2:10)

Later, in a discourse with three friends he adds the acclamation which revealed the mettle of this man named Job, “even if he slays me, I will hope in Him. (Job 13:15) These “friends” were self-professed experts who told him he could get out of the mess if he accepted their formulaic approach to religious living. They could not see that Job was fully surrendered to God. He simply refused to turn God into an object for His own use.

The “Friends” of Job

When we encounter the friends of Job at the beginning they seem empathetic, tearing their cloaks, weeping and spending a week with Job. But their feigned empathy soon ends. They are not in fact compassionate — a concept which in Hebrew as well as Greek means “suffering with.” They had no interest in entering into Job’s pain, just in blaming him and his behavior for causing it.

They thought that they had this whole faith thing figured out and they were going to enlighten him with their higher knowledge. Sound familiar? Perhaps in contemporary Christian circles they would have given him the latest teaching from some superstar making the circuit who had it all figured out, along with some formulaic use of Bible texts to prove their point.

Perhaps they would have told him that if he just followed these seven, eight or twelve steps, all the pain would go away. After all, Job’s life was a mess, right? He was obviously not really living for God or he would not be suffering or abandoned. Right? No, wrong.

Bad Things Sometimes Happen to Good People, Such as Jesus.

These “wearisome comforters” (Job 16:2-4) reveal their agendas in their errant assessment of Job’s suffering and their bad advice. They think they have the answer for life’s deepest mystery, suffering and struggle. But they do not. No one does. In their counterfeit answers we find one of the dangers we still face: false teaching on suffering and pain.

In response to their long winded discourse, Job tells them to be silent because they are uttering falsehoods and offering vain remedies. Oh, for the voice of a Job in some of our contemporary Christian communities! Enough of the formulas, claims to hidden knowledge (a new form of Gnosticism) and assertions that we can manipulate the power of God to achieve our own ends (a new kind of simony). The byways of our churches and communities are filled with wounded people who have suffered as a result of such poor teaching.

Bad Advice From False Friends

Let’s look at the friends’ explanations. Elephaz the Temanite tells Job God is “mad at Him” (Job 5). Bildad the Shuhite tells Job that “his misfortunes are his own fault.” (Job 8). Finally, Zophar the Naamathite tells Job “that he is being punished” (Job 11). All of them are wrong. Their spiritual descendants are wrong today. Job was living in the heart of God’s will. When stripped of the “proofs” of Gods favor, he found the purified Love, the richness reserved for those who love God for God’s sake.

The Lord spoke these words to Elephaz:

“I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has. So now take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and sacrifice a burnt offering for yourselves. My servant Job will pray for you and I will accept his prayer and not deal with you according to your folly. You have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.” (Job 42: 7-9)

Contrition and Restoration

With contrition, Job told the Lord he did not understand, repented for his lack of trust, and interceded for the friends who had accused him (Job 42:8). Those who’d known him before his troubles now dined with him again. The Lord gave him double what he had lost; fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen and a thousand donkeys. He had seven sons, three daughters and lived a hundred and forty years. He saw his children and his grandchildren to the fourth generation.

God was right there, in the storm! (Job 38) He still is. He turns difficulties, struggles, pain, betrayals, and loss in our lives to good, as St. Paul reminded the early Christians centuries later. (Rom. 8:28) This encounter points to another storm on the Sea of Galilee. The disciples were with Jesus in a boat (Matt. 8: 23-27). He was asleep. Terrified, they woke Him and He calmed the storm. He was in the storm itself; they just needed to rest in Him.

In Jesus, the God of Job came among us in the flesh. In His sacred humanity He calls us to live in the struggles and storms of life. He asks us to follow His Way and not our own. My friend, Bob McDonnell inspired me in the way he dealt with his ordeal. I am deeply grateful. I ask you to join me in praying for him — and his family.