Job and His Friends

A few months ago I saw an image online that had a saying on it. It was something like this: "If you are upset or overwhelmed, it's a sign that you're spending less time with God and more time with the world." And I thought something like, "Wait a minute! I'm overwhelmed because life has been kicking me in the teeth!" And one thought led to another.

I thought of the story of Job. He was a righteous man who went through an awful time in his life. He lost his children, his animals, and his wealth. Then he got boils all over his body. He was a miserable mess. He had 3 friends who came for a visit. First, they just stared at him. Then they started blaming him for his predicament, saying that he deserved it. They said there must be some great sin in his life, and God was judging him.

The thing his friends didn't know, and Job didn't even know, is that at the beginning of the story there was a scene that had played out in Heaven. The devil had told God that if Job's possessions and health were taken away, Job would curse God. God was confident that Job would still serve Him, and God allowed Job to be put through this hard time to show what Job was really made of. He hadn't sinned. He was actually suffering because of his righteousness.

The day I read that phrase online that I didn't agree with, I wondered if we are like Job's friends more often than we care to admit. People are going through hard times all around us. And we don't know the whole story. Often we think we do, but we don't. So we think things like, "They wouldn't be going through this if they were a better Christian." Or how about, "If he prayed more he wouldn't struggle with depression." I've even heard versions of, "If she was what she should be in the marriage, her husband probably wouldn't cheat."

But when we read the story of Job we feel sorry for him. We are on his side. We can't believe how awful his friends are, and we say things like, "With friends like that, who needs enemies?" But today I want to suggest something. The only reason we are so much on his side is because of that scene from Heaven we have read about. If that were missing from the story, we would be sitting there right beside Job's friends, judging him too. Because that's how human nature generally works. We tend to judge harshly unless we suffer ourselves and learn not to judge.

So today I want to remind us all to choose compassion. We never really know what another person is suffering, because we haven't walked in their shoes. And we aren't in a position to say that their suffering is their fault. Because, just maybe, they are suffering because they are doing the right thing.