Devotion - Monday, September 6

The book of Job is intriguing, insightful, and easily misunderstood. It was the scholarly pursuit of one of my professors who became a personal friend. He spent his whole academic career studying and writing on the verses of this book.

Most of us know the simple plot line. God and the devil are in a conversation. The devil asserts that Job’s devotion to God is a result of his wealth; were his physical circumstances to change, so would his love of God. As property, home, even family are taken from Job, the devil’s assertion is proven false. Job continues to turn to God.

Three of Job’s friends come, to sit with him and “observe his grief.” This they do. For seven days and seven nights they sat with him on the ground, “and no one spoke a word to him.”

In modern speech, these friends are often maligned. We hear the phrase, “Job’s friends” as a way of referring to one who pretends to be a friend, but is of no help what-so-ever. These friends earn such a designation, but not in those first seven days. It is when they cease to sit with Job, observe his grief, mourn with him that they become useless.

One by one these friends offer advice. They try to give answers as to why all this has happened to Job. None of the answers are sufficient.

Over the next couple of weeks, as the lectionary takes us through the chapters of Job, we might examine some of those answers. For today, I want to share with you what that professor helped me to understand about Job and his “friends.” A good friend is one who sits with us in our distress. A good friend is one who takes our side and sits, on the ground, with us. A false friend is one who pretends to have the answer for which we search. A false friend is one who thinks that solutions are simple and readily available.

Sometimes, the best way to be a friend is to sit with the one who grieves and simply observe their grief. We honor the pain in their lives by saying not a word. We support them by allowing them to teach us the depth of their injury. It isn’t in offering wise words that we do the ministry of our Lord; it is by assuring the one who suffers that they will not suffer alone. Our presence is their assurance that they are not abandoned; it is the reminder that they have not been abandoned by God.