Monday, April 26, 2010

Daily Reading: Job 1-4

Reading Through the Bible in a Year!
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1 comment:

  1. johnaraulersonMay 2, 2010 at 2:23 PM

    MINISTRY TO HURTING PEOPLE

    Job was a hurting man, a man who was distraught over the loss of his children, his possessions and his health. His world has suddenly fallen apart without any understanding why. It is tough enough to deal with the trials of tragedy and heartache, but it is even tougher when there is no answer for the pain.

    Job’s friends had come to console him. They came with noble intentions and for seven days they comforted him through the ministry of their presence. Not a word was spoken. What really can be said to someone experiencing such hurt? This was a precious sight: three friends quietly ministering to a battered friend.

    Job finally cries out in his agony. He cries out a lamentation of a hurting man seeking for honest answers to his plight. His cry is nothing more than therapy for the agony which reveals the weakness of his flesh and the vexation of his hurting soul.

    God chose to be silent but not his friends. Once the silence was broken by Job’s cries, the ministry of comfort quickly fades into a confrontation of correction. Instead of allowing Job to explore his hurt through penetrating questions to his Creator, they broke their silence with not words of comfort but with words of correction. Soon their relationship with Job turned from friends to foes and from comforters to combatants. The more Job cried out in questions to God to more he was corrected.

    The exchanges between Job and his friends became more intense than before until Job and his friends needed correction from God Himself to bring the truth back into view. Oh, that we might understand that presence is the most powerful form of ministry to the hurting soul. The least we say the better.

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