We’ve been
looking at the book of Job. We’ve talked
about how all sorts of terrible things have happened to Job, but that Job was
able to handle all of it. We’ve talked
about how what helped Job handle it was that Job understood who God is—that God
is better and wiser and stronger than he or any human being could ever hope to
be, that God does not owe us anything, and that we have no right to judge
anything that God does or does not do.
But even so, Job was still living in
terrible pain. He still had painful
sores all over his body. His faith
helped him deal with things, but it did not make the sores go away, and it did
not make the sores any less painful.
And before we go any farther, let’s
just talk about that a little bit, because that applies to our lives, too. Some of us are going through serious health
problems, and others of us have loved ones who are. And we have faith, and that helps, but it
does not make the problem go away. I’m
not saying that it cannot. God is
all-powerful, God can do anything, and we all know of people who were
miraculously cured of things. But most
of the time, that’s not how it works.
Most of the time, even though we have faith, we still have to deal with
whatever illness or injury we’re dealing with.
That was true for Job, too. He still had to deal with the pain of those
terrible sores. And of course, word
spread about what had happened to Job.
Job was a wealthy man, so it would not have taken long for the story of
his ruin and misery to get around. So
three of Job’s friends—Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar—get together to go and
sympathize with Job and to comfort their friend.
They come, and they cannot believe
their eyes. We’re told that they could
hardly recognize Job. But they came, and
they stayed. And for that week, they
just sat there. No one said a word to
Job. They just stayed there and sat
there with him.
We’re not told what Job thought
about that, but it may have been the best thing his friends could have
done. You’ve heard me say before that
one of the best things we can do for people is just be there for them. Just let them know that we know what’s going
on and that we care. And a lot of times,
to do that, we don’t need to say a word.
All we need to do is be there.
But so many times, we don’t do
that. And we come up with lots of
reasons why not. I’m too busy. I don’t know them that well. I wouldn’t know what to say. I wouldn’t know what to do. There’s nothing I really can do, anyway. What good would it do for me to just go sit
there when I cannot do anything? On and
on and on, with all these reasons why we should not go and be there for someone
who’s hurting. And don’t think I’m
pointing fingers here. The reason I know
all those excuses so well is that I’ve made them many times myself.
The point is that almost all of us make
them. We make them out of fear, out of
discomfort, out of selfishness, or for any number of reasons. But because we make them, we miss chances to
help people who are hurting. Because a
lot of times, it does not matter how well we know someone. It does not matter what whether there’s
anything we can do to help. It does not
matter whether we know what to do or what to say. Many times, the best thing we can do is the
easiest thing to do. It’s what Job’s
friends did, at first, anyway. It’s to
just sit there and be with someone. Not
saying anything, and not doing anything.
Just being there and letting them know we care.
You’ve heard me say this before, but
I truly believe that’s the reason God put us into groups—so we could be there
for each other. Think about it. God would not have had to have humans live in
families. After all, lots of animals don’t
have families—once the young are grown, they go off on their own and don’t seem
to have any feelings for their parents.
God would not have had to have humans live in communities—some animals
do, but a lot of them don’t. God would
not have had to have us come together in churches to worship God—there are
plenty of people who believe in God who don’t go to church very often.
The reason God put us into families, into communities, into churches, is
that God knows life can be awfully hard sometimes. It’s too hard for us to go through by
ourselves, and we’re not supposed to try.
We need each other. We need to
support each other. We need to encourage
each other. We need to love each other.
That’s why we have a prayer emphasis on people who feel alone. When all this happened to Job, he must have
felt terribly alone. Even his own wife
had told him he should curse God and die.
Job must have felt as alone as it’s possible to feel.
Job needed his friends. He need
them to be there for him. We all need
people to be there for us. And we need
to be there for others. Not to say
anything, necessarily, but just to be there for each other. That’s the only way we can all make it
through.
In fact, sometimes it’s when we open
our mouths that we mess things up. And
that’s what happens with Job’s friends.
They start talking, and they go on and on and on. Chapters three through thirty-seven are Job’s
friends talking to Job, and Job responding to what they have to say. We just pulled out a little snippet of it,
less than one chapter. You’re welcome.
Job’s friends go on and on, but they
basically have one message. That message
is this: Job, you messed up. The reason all this stuff happened to you is
because of your sin. You’ve sinned and
God is punishing you for it. The only
way this is possibly going to end well for you is if you go to God and confess
your sins and repent.
Now, we’re not told anything about
the motivation of Job’s friends when they said this. I’m not going to assume any bad intent. They may have truly believed what they told
Job, and they may have thought it was something they needed to say. I don’t know.
What I do know is that if there is anything less helpful that Job’s
friends could’ve said to him, I don’t know what it would be. What they said was not supportive, not
encouraging, and not loving. In fact, as
we know from the first couple of chapters of the book, it’s not even true. I mean, yes, the Bible tells us that we’re
all sinners in need of repentance and forgiveness, but that’s not what’s going
on here. Job was not being punished by
God for his sins. Job is described as
blameless and upright. These things have
happened to Job because God accepted a challenge from Satan. Satan said that if all these things happened
to Job, Job would curse God. God agreed
to let Satan do them, confident that Job would stay faithful. Now, as far as we know neither Job nor his
friends knew that, but Job knew enough to know that God was not punishing him
for his sins. He knew that what his
friends were saying was not true.
So that’s one lesson right
there: don’t assume we know what’s going
on in a situation when we don’t. But
even if what Job’s friends were saying had been true, it would not have been
very helpful. If what they were saying
was true, what they’d have been saying to Job is, Job, it’s your own fault that
you’re in this mess.
How any of us have ever been in a
mess of our own making? Yeah. I’m not saying how often it happens, but it
happens more often than I wish it did.
And when it happens, it’s really not very helpful for someone to come up
to me and say, “Well, it’s your own fault that you’re in this mess.” The chances are I already know that.
It’s like the old story about the
boy swimming in the river. Have you
heard this one? This kid is swimming in
the river and he accidentally gets into deep water. He’s scared he might drown, so he starts
hollering for help. A man hears him and
stops and starts chewing him out for being so careless. The kid says, “Please, sir. Save me first and scold me later.”
When someone has things going wrong,
telling them it’s their own fault that things are going wrong is not going to
help them. The chances are that they
already know that. And even if they
don’t, assessing blame does not do any good.
Maybe later, after the crisis is over, there’ll be time to look at what
happened and how things got to be the way they were. But when someone’s in the middle of the
situation, they don’t need us to help them assess blame. They need us, again, to support them, to
encourage them, to love them. They need
us to let them know they’re not alone.
They need us to let them know we care about them. They need us to let them know that we’ll
stand by them and do anything we can to get them through this situation. Even if, as we said before, all we can do is
sit there with them.
When Job’s friends did that, they were
doing the best thing they could do. They
were giving him support and encouragement and love. They were letting Job know they cared about
him. They were letting Job know he was
not alone. Let’s follow that part of
their example. Let’s stop making excuses,
and be there for each other. That’s why
God put us together—so we can be there for each other and love each other.
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