I'm in a bit of a predicament. I realized today I'm not as good of a friend as I always think I am...
In the past as I read of Job and heard of his plight, I always knew God had allowed Satan to harass Job. But what I never realized was Satan never specifically asked to pick on Job. Satan and an angel come to visit God. God asks Satan, "Whattcha been up to?" (Loosely paraphrased of course) and Satan says he's been roaming back and forth across the earth. Then God offers this suggestion... "Have you considered my servant Job?" God just offers willingly to let Satan consider harassing Job. This doesn't seem quite right to me... but yet I know God knew Job well enough that He knew that whatever Satan threw at Job was not going to break his love for God. Does God know me like this? Probably he knows me... but he may not trust me like this yet. Too often I blame God for my challenges rather than looking at Satan as the source of the strife. God is not the source of confusion. Satan is. God may have allowed the strife to take place but Satan is the source.
The other thing I recognize from this story is that God allowed Satan to cause all kinds of trouble in Job's life. But could Satan have also provided the "friends" to Job? I mean it is obvious that from the beginning they cared for Job. They wanted to come and mourn with him and remained silent for 7 days and 7 nights just letting Job mourn. But yet... when the mourning carried on longer then they thought it should, they started to try to "fix" Job. They tried to point out the problems and the sources of problems to they could help him get over it. Obviously they were growing faint of hearing him mourn and lament. They wanted action. What determination and faith Job showed by holding on to God during his friends accusations. There are times when Job wanted to die and be put out of his misery, but he never renounced God in the process.
I try to put myself in the shoes of the "friends" of Job to get a better perspective on my life.
- Have I ever travelled out of my way to mourn with a friend for 3 solid days? Not very much.
- Have I remained silent and seven days and seven nights to listen to someone else's problems? I grow faint of listening to problems after about 30 minutes max... let alone 7 days.
- Have I ever tried to fix a problem for someone else by attempting to find the "root cause" and suggest a solution? (If my wife is reading this, she is not allowed to post comments in response to this question.) Of course I do... all the time.
- Do I rush to judgement and start condemning a perfectly innocent person, simply because God was using them as an opportunity to show the world their faith in Him?
- Am I being used by Satan more than I'm being a Godly friend to others in their time of need?
Now you can see my predicament... Even when I think I'm being used by God to be a good friend, I still allow myself to be used by Satan. My calling may be from God to be a friend in times of need... but my need to fix the problem or offer advice may be getting in the way of God's plan. If you are reading this, you are someone I consider a friend. And because you're reading this, I'm expecting you to help hold me accountable now that I know this... please remind me that I'm trying to fix the problem when all you need is a Godly friend to sit and listen... and ultimately God's glory will shine through both of us.
