Ever read the book of Job?
No? Why not?
- Heard it was too depressing
- Don’t want to draw Satan’s attention and have him make another “wager with God” this time with you as the ‘victim’?
- Too long? You’re more of a ‘verse a day’ kinda person.
- You’ve sworn off all negative thoughts.
Then let me just draw your attention to a largely ignored subject of the book—Job’s three friends. Remember these guys? The losers, ingrates, judgmental pharisaical know-it-alls? The world’s worst friends? Honestly, I’ve heard it all but I’ve seldom heard it preached like it really was.
And how was it?
Truth is, these guys were amazing! They would put 99.9% of us to shame. They were not horrible friends and I can prove it. Let’s just look at a few things they did and then ask ourselves if we know any “friends” who would do the same…
- All three dropped what they were doing and traveled to be with their dear friend. We read about this in Job 2:11, “11 Now when Job’s three friends heard of all this evil that had come upon him, they came each from his own place, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. They made an appointment together to come to show him sympathy and comfort him.”
- When they saw his condition, they were heart sick and wept with their friend. “12 And when they saw him from a distance, they did not recognize him. And they raised their voices and wept,
- Have you ever been so deeply grieved by the pain and trials of a friend that you just freaked out and tore your Aerapostale T or put your Polo shirt in the shredder because you didn’t feel like looking so good while your friend was hurting so bad? “…and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads toward heaven.”
- How about when you finally got to the hospital and reached your good friend’s bedside. What did you do then?—make awkward small talk? Try to get him focused on the positive? Keep the visit short just incase your “friend’s” condition might be contagious? Well these guys did what every grief crushed person longs for real friends to do—they just listened in silence and loved on their friend, “13 And they sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great.”
Ok, it’s also true that ‘after all this’ they each took a turn at playing amateur psychologist and tried to ‘label’ the horrific events in such a way that made sense to people at that time. Yes, they offered some pretty weak and baseless theories that did not exactly help matters. But all of that was after they showed how true blue they were!
When I think about the type of friendships most people have today they mostly seem to consist of golf buddies, fantasy football mates, trash talking, one upmanship camaraderie and the like—you know, not too deep, not too committed—basically surfacy stuff. Can you see anyone in your fantasy football league taking a week off work to just sit in silence with you, take care of you, try to encourage you with actions rather than useless words?
I can’t. And I include myself in this evaluation.
Would the other three in your golf foursome tear their Nike Polo shirts and throw their Footjoys into the nearest pond empathizing with your pain?
Probably not.
And I won’t even go there about shedding actual tears—real men don’t cry has been the official slogan for guys over roughly the last hundred years—so you can bet you won’t be seeing crocodile tears or even moist eyes—unless they’re lubricating their contact lenses.
So let’s be honest about this story—the friends weren’t losers and ingrates. They were three men who cared very deeply for their good friend, Job. They were men who would probably have done anything to help him. They were also men who pushed Job to get back up and on track again—it’s just that their theories about God and the spiritual situation before them were…wrong.
So where does that leave
At the end of part one. 🙂