Finding God's Comfort # 7

Finding God's Comfort # 7

God was pleased with Job's sincerity and humility - but He was displeased with Job's friends, and he said to them, "I am angry with you, because you have not spoken of Me what is right." We must be careful never to misrepresent God. We must be careful not to profess to be His interpreters, telling others what God means, why He does this or that - lest we speak wrongly of Him. The friends of Job made that mistake. They thought they understood God's meaning and purposes in Job's trials, and they pressed the thoughts upon the suffering man, adding to his pain and grief. But they had spoken of that of which they knew nothing, and had done only harm. We had better not try to explain God's meanings in his darker providences. We may interpret them wrongly, thus misrepresenting and dishonoring God - and hurting feeble, sensitive souls. We had better leave God to be His own interpreter.

God did not turn from the friends, without a message of comfort: "My servant Job will pray for you, and I will accept his prayer and not deal with you according to your folly." It is a great thing to have for a friend - one who has God's ear. We think ourselves happy, when we need a great favor, if we have a friend in high places who can speak for us with his influence. Still greater privilege is it when we have an intercessor who can present our names to heaven's King, and whose voice has power with God. There are human friends who can, and do serve us in this way. They lie near to the heart of Christ and can speak to God - sure of being heard. "The supplication of a righteous man avails much."

Job did as God suggested. He prayed for his friends, and his prayer for others brought blessing to himself. "Jehovah restored his prosperity  when he prayed for his friends." This is an important statement. There seems to have been a barrier in the way of the blessing of Job, which was not removed until he began to pray for his friends. Probably he had a feeling of unkindness in his heart toward them, because of what they had said to him about his trials and the reasons for them. We are not surprised that Job felt in this way toward his friends, for they were not wise and gentle comforters, and they doubtless gave him more pain than they soothed. A good many people who try to be comforters, only lay thorns under aching heads - instead of a soft pillow.

No art needs a more delicate touch, than the art of being a comforter. The hands of most of us are too rough and clumsy to be laid on throbbing human hearts, in efforts to soothe their pain. No wonder Job felt that his friends were miserable comforters, and that he was not at first in a mood to pray for them. But until he could pray for them, blessing could not come to him. Unloving hearts cannot receive God's divine love.

The lesson is for us. Others may have injured us or grieved us in some way, and we may not be ready to forgive them. But while we feel so - we are shutting divine blessing away from ourselves. Job's praying at length for his friends, showed that his heart was now softened toward them, that its bitterness was gone, that he had forgiven their cruel words and taken them back into his heart. Then blessing came to him, as God restored his prosperity. Just so, when we can pray for one who has wronged us, or misjudged us, or said unkind things of us - we are in a condition to receive blessing from God.

Job was also ready now to come out of his sorrow, to try to help others. This, too, is a good thing. We do not find comfort by staying in the darkness of our own grief, by thinking only of it; we must forget ourselves, and begin to serve others and seek their good before we can find the light of God's comfort. Selfishness in sorrow is - selfishness, and selfishness in any form, misses God's blessing. We begin to find joy - only when in self-forgetfulness, we begin to help others.

~J. R. Miller~

(The End)