Job
5 – 6
Job’s afflictions are now being scrutinized by his friends.
In verse 5:1 Eliphaz chimes in:
Eliphaz: As
for you, Job, feel free to call, but will anyone reply?
Among His holy attendants, to whom will you turn?
The problem with his friends is they make
assumptions based on teachings and experience, ignoring the root cause. Job is
a good man is being tormented by Satan and not because of transgressions. I
know I think like Eliphaz more often than not. When things are down, I wonder
if I was praying the right prayer, or if I did something wrong. The economy
crashed in 2007 and by 2010 our shop closed. We were provided for with a job
and survived. I question if we would have thrived if I had not followed God.
Now that is foolish since God would not punish the entire nation/world because
my lack of faith bought lottery tickets.
Or should I say misplaced faith assuming
God was going to give me a lottery win. Either way it may have just been a
consequence of everyone spending more than they made and not “driven” by God at
all. One thing that Eliphaz assumes is all “bad” things are punishment
from God. I tend to think God has a more hands off approach, where we reap the
consequences more than receive God’s wrath. Spend more than you make and
eventually someone will fail, either the banks loaning the money or the people
over burdened by debt. In the most recent case, it was both!!
Verse 5:17 is something to remember when we are “corrected”:
Remember, a happy man accepts God’s correction,
so don’t despise the discipline of the Highest God.
Honestly don’t despise the discipline of any one, when
justified. The only time in my life I received “discipline” I did not deserve
was in 1st grade in Arizona. We had a substitute and everyone
decided to sit in different seats, but did not tell me. Well I am standing
before my seat and could not compute the person sitting in it, so I waited for
them to move. The substitute assumed I was the cause and set me to the
principal’s office. I was only doing what I was told, yet someone was in MY
SEAT!! It’s been almost 50 years and that still bothers me!!
Now Eliphaz is a man of strong beliefs and convictions
guided by his ancestors who made it seem that all bad things were punishment
for sin. That is the bias for his comments and unfortunately is not changed by
Job’s response. Verse 6:15 has Job calling his friends out:
But you, my brothers, are unpredictable
like an unexpected flood of the wadi that quickly rises and
then falls,
They latch on to something that they observed
or learned in the past and do not open their minds to something different.
Ironically this ties into the discussion this week on YouTube with a M.R. about
evolution. Both of use perceive the other as being this way. I keep questioning
the data and he keeps saying the same thing. That is not rooted in fact and
since the “data” is so convoluted and difficult to understand for the
“layperson”, he assume mine is blind faith in God. Rather I have discovered a
ton of this on my own research and understand the “data” … he has gotten into
my head!! I pray I have gotten in his!! Key today is be open and not rooted in
your beliefs. Do not drift from the word, but understand it fully and not
compartmentalized.
C