Read: Job 11-13
Focus Verse:
Zophar: “Are these words to go unanswered? Is this talker to be vindicated? Will your idle talk reduce others to silence? Will no one rebuke you when you mock? You may say to God, ‘My beliefs are flawless and I am pure in your sight.’ Oh, how I wish that God would speak, that he would open his lips against you and disclose to you the secrets of wisdom, for true wisdom has two sides.” (Job 11:2-6a).
Job: “But I have a mind as well as you; I am not inferior to you. Who does not know all these things? I have become a laughingstock to my friends, though I called on God and he answered—a mere laughingstock, though righteous and blameless! Those who are at ease have contempt for misfortune as the fate of those whose feet are slipping.” (Job 12:3-5)
Devotion: To sum up, friend #3 Zophar now weighs in with his 2 cents. Zophar rebukes Job. Job has been trying to express his needless pain and suffering, but his friends won’t listen to him. They don’t want to, or can’t, believe that what he’s saying is true. Job is saying that he doesn’t believe he has sinned to cause the destruction and death that opposes him in his life. He wants an opportunity to plead his case before God, and if he’s guilty he’ll gladly rectify and work to make it right. However, he can’t think of any sin he’s committed. And we as the reader know that he is indeed blameless before God. Yet Zophar and company refuse to listen to anything Job says and refuse to even try to understand his pain. Job tells us why it is so hard to fathom someone else’s pain sometimes: “Those who are at ease have contempt for misfortune..” (12:5a). Zophar hasn’t experienced what Job has, his life is content, therefore he approaches Jobs suffering with contempt. He can’t relate/understand so he assumes what Job says can’t be real or true. Too often in our society we do just that. Right now the up-cry all around us is to listen and understand the pain of others in our society. But too often people take the stance that because we can’t relate, we assume another’s pain isn’t real. What we can learn today from Job is to not be like his friends. When he is crying out to his friends they won’t listen despite Job not being at fault in the least for his suffering. Sound familiar? We must work hard to do the opposite in life, that when people share their suffering and pain and their experiences that we LISTEN and make an effort to understand. Avoid the temptation that when your life is content you see others pain with contempt. We must all work together at this time in our history to listen and really try to understand others’ sufferings, never writing them off because we can’t relate.
Prayer: LORD help me to listen, to really listen to others. God I have had my own share of pain but nothing compared to what others go through daily. Help me to take time to really try to understand others’ pain, never writing it off just because it doesn’t fit my own personal experience. Amen.
Additional Scripture: “LORD my God, I cried to You for help, and You restored my health.” (Psalm 30:2)