Miserable Comforters!

Reading:  Job 8 - 16
My Verse: ""I have heard many such things; miserable comforters are you all" (16:2).

Job's friends started off correctly. First they came to him.  Then they sat with him silently for several days.  They were mourning with him.  They were showing they cared simply by being there with him.  They were quiet.  But then they decided they needed to attach blame somewhere for what had happened.  They decided that Job had to have done something terribly wrong for God to allow these awful tragedies to fall upon him.  They thought if they could convince Job to "confess" these wrongs God would stop the punishment.  They presumed, in their arrogance that they were being "helpful."

I read of a couple that suffered the tragic loss of a child.  They said the best thing people did was to simply show up to give them quiet condolences, quiet company.  They received many cards that expressed simple sorrow for the tragic loss and that their thoughts were with the couple.  No one tried to explain away the loss.  It was enough to know they cared.

I distinctly remember my reaction to the behavior of a pastor when we lost my brother and sister.  I was standing there looking at their bodies in a kind of shock as they lay there on the ground after having been pulled from the bottom of the lake.  Pastor Don came over, he knelt down on the ground by them and simply wept. I remember being somewhat astonished.  It was not until years later that I understood his behavior.  He did not try to explain away the tragedy.  He just wept at the awfulness of it for it was an awful thing.

Oh, LORD God, there is so very little that we understand.  Job, in the deepest depths of misery would hang onto his faith in You, " Though He slay me, yet will I have faith in Him!" (13:15).

I ran across an article on this famous lady.  She spoke of why she married her husband.  She said she saw in him that he had what she called "stick to it grit."  She said she knew he would stick with her come what may.  This is definitely the kind of "grit" Job has!

"For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.." (Isaiah 55:9).

"The LORD Almighty has sworn, "Surely, as I have planned, so it will be, and as I have purposed, so it will happen" (Isaiah 14:24).

"For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known"(1 Corinthians 13:12).

I cannot presume to know the why of great sorrow.  I can only, like Job, hold onto the surety of Your great love , LORD God.  Help me to do that.

I pray for wisdom to be humble and  empathetic when comforting someone during a tragedy.

Ditat Deus - God Enriches!