ListenDaily - 28 July 2009: Unrecognizeable
Greetings from Merci Mission, NC! The readings this week may be short and sporadic, I am on a mission trip and get pc access when I can!
When Job's three friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite, heard about all the troubles that had come upon him, they set out from their homes and met together by agreement to go and sympathize with him and comfort him. When they saw him from a distance, they could hardly recognize him; they began to weep aloud, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads. Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was.
Job 2:11-13 NIV (find any passage at www.Biblegateway.org)
"When they saw him from a distance, they could hardly recognize him."
How bad was Job's condition, that his friends could hardly recognize him? They were going to his home, they knew where he was, and yet his condition was such that he looked like a stranger to them. Granted, his physical condition was terrible -- and that was a significant part of the problem.
But I think there was more...Job's suffering had caused a change in his countenance. We admire Job for not cursing God, but there is no record, thus far, of him crying out to God for help. After his 'first test' we are told that Job fell to the ground in worship. There is no similar response after his 'second test'. What might have been different if Job not only refused to curse God, but continued to worship?
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Questions:
1. What are your thoughts? 2.How does this passage make you feel? 3. Who is God to you?
INTERESTING THOUGHTS:
"God, who foresaw your tribulation,
has specially armed you to go through it,
not without pain but without stain."
C.S.Lewis
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