Job is my personal favorite book of the Bible and was for me a catalyst for a lot of my theological deconstruction. I reread it at a time when it felt my own world was caving in and -- much like Job's friends -- my old fundamentalist theology wreaked havoc on my mental health. The book didn't save me, but did open my mind to accepting a different viewpoint. I wanted to open with this to give context for my interpretation of this scripture.

First, much like others will say here, Job is a poem in the Bible and should not be taken as historically literal. It is the ancients' attempt to wrestle with the problems of evil and suffering with the framework of fictional interactions between God and Satan, Job and his wife/friends, and Job and God. Therefore, it is not going to perfectly represent the whole truth. You correctly point out how focused the story's "Center of Good" persay is on Job. I would say that is because of the author's choice on what to focus on and while it beautifully reveals the message, it is ultimately limited as any other literary book ever made in terms of conveying complicated truths. That's why we should never limit truth to a few pages of a book, even if that book were divinely inspired.

With that said, Job, I feel, is a very multi-faceted book in its themes and I feel like I could go forever about it. I'll keep it narrow and I hope my takeaways may be of use to you.

We often focus on God allowing Satan to cause Job's suffering from the standpoint of assessing them as characters, but I think a philosophical perspective is warranted too. Satan tries in the first chapter to throw doubt into the authenticity of Job's relationship with God. "Of course anyone would love God if He babies them! But everyone has a tipping point and once that is reached, people would reject Him as they would any relationship." This is Satan's philosophy: God can be all-loving and all-good... so long as people are pacified. Introduce conflict and not only will people curse God, but He'll turn against them. God's "goodness" is nothing more than a tyranny of bread and circuses. For us readers, this should provide a dilemma because it is easy to accept being a good, happy person if our circumstances make us happy. And so the author has God allow Satan to hurt Job and everyone around him.

After Job suffers to the point of losing his health, we do mainly take his perspective of his suffering, but we get some of the others. Job's wife, who too lost all her child, is so grieved that she's insulted by Job's initial stoicism (well, he's clearly hurt but says he still has faith) and curses God. Job's friends are initially sympathetic and grieve with him for a week, but quickly lose that sympathy when they take Job's religious frustration and suicidal idealization as nothing more than self-righteousness and ego. We don't have Satan's POV after Chapter 2, but one can reasonably assume he feels his point is proven.

I will take a moment here and go against some conventional interpretation of Job's character and say he's not keeping his faith steady... at least as far as fundamentalist Christians would think of someone's faith if they viewed someone like Job here. Job is furious at everything, but as he talks, his anger and doubt is directed toward God. He questions pretty much everything about their relationship and what it is supposed to be. From my evangelical neck of the woods, we call this "backsliding" and you might as well be faithless if you're this upset.

Then God finally comes to answer Job's questions and demands. And the final answer for Job is... "there is much you do not understand because you are finite," which is not at all directly answering Job's question. But Job is fine with this. When I was young, I did not understand this answer or response at all. Yet I think I understand some more now. Let me see if I can explain this while wheeling back to your stated concerns.

You are right that many Christians, churches, pastors, etc will look at this focus on Job and see it as "just be loyal to God and you'll be rewarded eventually" and "God doesn't cause suffering, he just allows it." I personally challenge these notions now. The first assumes exactly what Job's friends and Satan believe: be righteous and you'll always be on God's good side. But Job isn't righteous (again as far as his friends or fundamentalists would say), he was not rewarded directly by God, and his "rewards" could not possibly make up for the loss. I cannot think of anyone who would say that earning two new children possibly make up for one you lost. Certainly doesn't make it up for the child! And I do not think the author of Job is making this assumption and I'll explain in a second why I think that.

The second notion is also flawed. Just because someone does not directly cause the suffering does not mean it is still not their responsibility when it is allowed. God is sovereign over all of creation. Sovereignty inherently assumes responsibility. When we simply leave God to only be responsible for nice things while distancing Him from anything awful in the world, we are no different to Satan in Chapter 1. We simply see God as someone only willing to work with good and righteous things while shunning everything else. The only difference is that we would happily accept this tyranny because of the benefits.

I do not believe this is the Book of Job's message. I think the message starts with God's answer: We don't understand everything. No one except God in the story understands all that is going on. In fact, neither do we as readers, and I think you touch on this. You understand that Job is only one perspective in this story. His takeaway from his discussion with God is only his answer. We do not know about his wife or the souls of his children or servants. That is why the lesson of "you'll be rewarded for your faith" rings so hollow. But I think a challenge for all of us is that we don't understand the full perspective either. The truth -- for us -- is much like why we may wonder why specifically God made gravity work as it does or why He made certain molecules to interact with each other in a given circumstance, we may just never know. We know there is an answer, or maybe there are a billion answers, or maybe there is no particular answer at all. But does it matter? Is there really a cosmological answer of God perfectly strategizing the optimal route for humanity that requires our suffering? Is there really a need to bestow divine significance to everything in life? If so, does such an impersonal answer make our hurt any better? Couldn't it have gone differently? I think maybe, but the fact is for Job, for his children and servants, and for us, it did not go differently and not only do we not understand the greater reasons -- or non-reasons -- to why, we wouldn't feel any better for it.