More to the Story

November 6

Job, the good and honorable man who walked uprightly before God, was put to a great test when the evil one challenged the Lord to do so. Much of that horrific experience was further clouded by Job’s friends whose words of counsel fell like blows upon this broken man.

Even words that seem to be of a positive nature, such as those found in Job 8:21, “God will yet fill your mouth with laughter and your lips with shouts of joy,” are really his friends’ way of saying that his trial will end, his plight will be removed, his hope shall be restored, if he will but confess his sin and become right before God.

These men, who are themselves steeped in, at the very least, the sin of judging a righteous man with perverted justice, have taken upon themselves a role that only God can assume—that of seeing and judging a man’s heart. God, who allowed Job’s misery, knew it did not spring out of any wrong-doing on Job’s part.

Job’s foolish counselors presumed that it did. We must not allow ourselves to fall into the temptation of judging another. Things are not always as they appear. Those who seem to be blessed, as those who seem to be sorely tested, may not be receiving the apparent blessing or trial from God. As with Job, there may be more to the story.