March 24, 2022

Job 4: 6 (NIV)

“Should not your piety be your confidence and your blameless ways your hope?”

Human suffering is not easy to explain.  Don’t always try.*

Job’s friends meant well. They rushed to be with him during his time of need. They tried to cheer him up – but like most of us, they were somewhat socially inept. We don’t know what to say in times of trouble but we very badly want to make things better for the sufferer. As if saying stupid things is really going to help!

If you read all of Eliphaz’s attempts to encourage Job, you will see that he was a proponent of the “reap what you sow” school of thought. He is convinced that Job’s misery is his own fault somehow – and if he's the one who "broke it," then he should be able to "fix it." If only Job were pious enough, he wouldn’t be doubting himself; if he were blameless, he wouldn’t be despairing.

As Christians, we walk a fine line between encouragement and false hope in our efforts to comfort a friend who is hurting. Yes, we must speak the truth in love – but do we know all the truth? Eliphaz had no idea that God and Satan were behind Job’s problems, but he had trouble admitting that he didn’t know everything. We encourage by listening and by offering biblical solutions, not by trying so hard to think of the right thing to say that we tune out the Spirit’s voice. At this stage of Job's crisis, Why this has happened is not the important question. "What are you going to do about it?" is.

The book of Job . . . teaches us the danger of speaking from an incomplete theology, of trying to analyze God's workings with only a narrow understanding of how he works, and what are the causes behind his actions in human life.*