Receiving of Friends

In my Women’s Bible Study we have been studying the book of Job. We are really just getting started and God has begun to show me new highlights about Job that I never knew before.  Don’t you love when God does that? You are simply reading the Word of God and something jumps off the page at you and smacks you in the face in a good way.

This week I was “digging deeper”  taking in how Job lost everything in one days time. His faith stood strong. As I read a little further, it says that his three friends left everything behind to go and be with their friend.  When they saw him they did not recognize him.  Yes, Job  was covered with horrible boils from his head to his toes, and he was in severe grief from the amount of loss he had suffered in such a short amount of time. And as he grieved he sat in ashes. His friends sat next to him in the ashes for seven days straight saying nothing to him. This was their way of comforting him.

Yes, I know in further chapters down the road his friends don’t use wisdom when speaking to Him. Their tongues got in the way.  But in Job Chapter 2 they had come alongside to be there to comfort and sympathize with Job without saying a word. As I thought about not speaking a word for seven days…wow, that says a lot about how they were trying to minister to their friend in his time of need.

As I read this two things came to mind.  The first is sometimes when someone is suffering I feel like I need to fix their pain.  That is not the case. God is the fix it, in ALL situations.  I can be there for someone by embracing them with Gods love, but God does the fixing.  The other thing that came to mind is a lot of times we only remember the negative things that our friends do.  Every single person in this life will let us down, yes even our friends.  The only one who won’t is God.  We must choose to celebrate the things in friendship that are done before the Lord and when they are not, look at them as an opportunity to pray about.

When we are feeling stuck or insecure about situations in our life it is easy to be a finger pointer at other people.  In my book, Big Girls DO Cry, I talk about this in Chapter 3,Maskerade.  Job didn’t put on any masks, he suffered well before and with God knowing that NOTHING could separate him from the LOVE of GOD!  Romans 8:39.

As you are walking in your community of friendships, I pray you don’t through the bath water out with the baby. There are many hurting people out there and you may be the only JESUS they see.  I want to encourage you today to seek God in all your relationships and you wont go wrong!