The Devotional - 36

The Devotional

Comment:

Sometimes I am overwhelmed with events to write about that will parallel or be an analogy to the subjects I see in the written and Living Word of God. To choose one of these events is not so easy. Yesterday, I sought to use an old antique and the ability to refurbish it back to the original. I suppose I would like to use some of that old paint and labor of restoration again today. However, we should always remember that human analogy is limited by the impurity of time, while the Living Word of God is Pure, Peaceable and Patient through time and eternity. Note James 3:17; But the wisdom that is from above is FIRST pure, THEN peaceable and gentle, willing to yield full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy.

Challenge: Job 1 through 14

Zophar, Eliphaz and Bildad are identified as friends, looking back at Job 2:11-13 we see that these men made an appointment with each other to go and visit with Job to mourn and comfort him. When these men saw him from a distance, they could not recognize him, Job’s condition of suffering was more than they expected. Have we not at times wept over someone’s moments of suffering and even failed to speak words of comfort or restoration? The answer is yes, yes we have been there, even walked away knowing we failed to comfort properly.

At these times in life, while we seek to be a comfort we can and often are just the opposite. We know that the devil walks about like a “roaring lion” seeking someone to devour. We also feel that we have been ordained by God to comfort the broken hearted and no doubt we have been selected to do just that. With this motivation we move forward and fail to notice the roaring lion who is promoting his  religion has his sights on us. When we fail to notice our human good reacts and we seek unknowingly to use our thoughts and lips to burn deeper wounds into ears of the mourner.

It is not difficult to understand Job’s response in 13:1-5 – My eyes have seen all this, my ears have heard and understood it. What you know, I also know; I am not inferior to you. (Mourning does not mean that one lacks wisdom and understanding). When we suffer we do not seek to be smeared with lies; why go to a doctor whose practice is worthless? Job concludes that all of his friends at this point should keep silent since their judgment is out of line with Job’s request to God to know WHY? Job is about to speak to them and he says “for when I speak it will be wisdom for you”.

Job has not given in to false religion and human good, and it is not pompous or arrogant to be mourning and say “Though God should slay me, yet will I TRUST Him”. The Spiritual Wisdom and understanding attained by one who suffers is far more valuable than the misapplied words of religion and human good.