Josh’s Thoughts

Job 6:1-7 MESSAGE
(1) Job answered:
(2) “If my misery could be weighed, if you could pile the whole bitter load on the scales,
(3) It would be heavier than all the sand of the sea! Is it any wonder that I’m screaming like a caged cat?
(4) The arrows of God Almighty are in me, poison arrows - and I’m poisoned all through! God has dumped the whole works on me.
(5) Donkeys bray and cows moo when they run out of pasture - so don’t expect me to keep quiet in this.
(6) Do you see what God has dished out for me? It’s enough to turn anyone’s stomach!
(7) Everything in me is repulsed by it - it makes me sick. Pressed Past the Limits

I think that “The Message” really captures the spirit of Job 6:1-7.

Sometimes people need a friend more than they need someone to tell them all the reasons that they’re going through what they’re going through.

Job had just finished having his life completely and totally ruined. Children are dead, wealth is gone, and and his own wife has told him to just curse God and die. On top of all that, his health is shot too. His flesh has turned all crusty (Job 7:5), he’s itching like mad (2:8), he’s in pain (2:13), and his flesh is leaking gunk (7:5). Basically, he’s in bad shape.

So three of Job’s friends show up, and they sit in silence with him for seven days as a way of showing their support. That part was great, and if they had kept their mouths shut then everything would have been fine, but of course, after seven days, they had to start telling Job everything that he did wrong.

Job’s response? He basically told his friends that no one could keep their mouth shut after going through the stuff that he had been through. After all, even donkeys and cows don’t complain without a reason. Job just had to let it out.

Now I don’t know about you, but it seems to me like Job didn’t need people judging him right then. As I heard a preacher say once, “When you’re kid has just fallen out of a tree and broken his arm, then isn’t the time to yell at him for being in the tree; get the arm set and a cast on it and then talk to him about not climbing trees.”

That’s good advice, but the problem is that it’s really hard for us humans to follow it.

When a friend comes to me with problems my instinctive reaction is to tell them how to fix it. Oh, oh, oh…how I wish that I could learn to keep my mouth shut and offer them support instead of trying to fix all of their problems!

(By now you’ve probably figured out that I’m writing this post as much for me as I am for anyone else.)

I know that this isn’t very deep stuff, but it’s good advice. If I could learn to follow it myself 100% of the time then I would be in good shape.

Dear Lord, please help me to learn to control my tongue! Please grant me the wisdom to know what to say and when to say it!

Jam 1:26 GNB
(26) Do any of you think you are religious? If you do not control your tongue, your religion is worthless and you deceive yourself.

Jam 3:2-12 GNB
(2) All of us often make mistakes. But if a person never makes a mistake in what he says, he is perfect and is also able to control his whole being.
(3) We put a bit into the mouth of a horse to make it obey us, and we are able to make it go where we want.
(4) Or think of a ship: big as it is and driven by such strong winds, it can be steered by a very small rudder, and it goes wherever the pilot wants it to go.
(5) So it is with the tongue: small as it is, it can boast about great things. Just think how large a forest can be set on fire by a tiny flame!
(6) And the tongue is like a fire. It is a world of wrong, occupying its place in our bodies and spreading evil through our whole being. It sets on fire the entire course of our existence with the fire that comes to it from hell itself.
(7) We humans are able to tame and have tamed all other creatures—wild animals and birds, reptiles and fish.
(8) But no one has ever been able to tame the tongue. It is evil and uncontrollable, full of deadly poison.
(9) We use it to give thanks to our Lord and Father and also to curse other people, who are created in the likeness of God.
(10) Words of thanksgiving and cursing pour out from the same mouth. My friends, this should not happen!
(11) No spring of water pours out sweet water and bitter water from the same opening.
(12) A fig tree, my friends, cannot bear olives; a grapevine cannot bear figs, nor can a salty spring produce sweet water.

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