Spoken With Love: Week 3 Day 2

Job 2:11 – 13  

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. 12 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. 13 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 3:1 

After this, Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth.

Summary of Job chapters 3 – 37 (which we encourage you to read in its entirety): 

We are first introduced to Job’s “friends” at the end of chapter 2, when we find that Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar meet at the “park and ride” to travel and meet Job “to go and sympathize with him and comfort him” (Job 2:11). Unfortunately, that’s not where it ends. The three amigos take turns harassing Job, telling him that he surely must have done something to earn God’s wrath, that he wasn’t as righteous as he thought, and that he was not wise. Throughout it all, Job did two things: he maintained his innocence, and he refused to curse God for his plight.

When Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar first arrived, they did initially act like his friends; they sat with Job for seven days, saying nothing, just being with him (Job 2:13). Things would change after those seven days, however. 

One of my favorite Christmas movies is It’s a Wonderful Life. In the movie, George Bailey is in such dire straits that, while standing on a bridge, he contemplates jumping into the water below. After being rescued by his guardian angel, George says, “I suppose it would have been better if I’d never been born at all.” Job knew that feeling! Things were so bad that Job came to the point of cursing the day he was born. 

Have you ever been there? Do you know someone who is in that place where things are so hard they wish they had never been born? 

It was into a very difficult moment like this that three of Job’s friends strode. What we can learn from them and Job during that moment is potent – that presence is the most powerful gift you can give someone who is hurting. Words often are not needed; just being there is all that matters. 

Who needs you today to simply be present in their life?