{"id":5072,"date":"2023-10-08T21:04:03","date_gmt":"2023-10-09T02:04:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nazareneblogs.org\/pastorscott\/?p=5072"},"modified":"2023-10-08T21:04:03","modified_gmt":"2023-10-09T02:04:03","slug":"devotional-on-job-10","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/devotional-on-job-10\/","title":{"rendered":"Devotional on Job"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><figure style=\"width: 1600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-jQxcAvVaT3U\/XyCHLV6Dq6I\/AAAAAAABFpE\/ukSXcB1z_tQxtdK4WIYIMXRiPpWDHYmkgCPcBGAsYHg\/s1600\/IMG_20190810_131358.jpg\" width=\"1600\" height=\"911\" class=\"size-large\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">2019 &#8211; Watkins Glen, NY State Park<\/figcaption><\/figure><br \/>\nHow things really are<br \/>\nJob 5: What a blessing when God steps in and corrects you!<br \/>\nIf I work my way through the book of Job and pick out various quotes from Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar, and Eliju and then present them to about any Christian I think they\u2019d find the words quite acceptable.  On the other hand, I could pick out many things Job says and those same Christians would shake their heads in dismay.  How can it be that this old book which has been available to God&#8217;s people for so long be so poorly understood?  Eliphaz says the same kind of stuff that we say.  He reminds Job of his good life and suggests that he draw on that for hope now, in this day of suffering.  He tells Job that everyone knows that for God&#8217;s people everything will turn out okay.  It&#8217;s the bad people who need to worry about what the future holds.  He even reminds his friend that human beings are born into trouble.  In other words, \u201cthat\u2019s life.\u201d  Job needs to throw himself on the mercy of God who delights in lifting broken people.  So now, Job ought to be thankful that God cares enough about him to discipline him.  If Job does that everything will be just fine.  Eliphaz concludes, &#8220;This is the way things are.&#8221;  The thing that I find spooky here is that if this speech was, for instance, in the Psalms, I\u2019d read it and not think anything about it, just accepting it as truth.  It\u2019s only as I realize who it is who says this and then skip to the end of the story that I realize I need to do some serious sifting through this kind of thinking if I\u2019m to actually know &#8220;how things really are.&#8221;  It isn&#8217;t that everything Job&#8217;s friends say is wrong.  Instead it\u2019s that not everything they say is right.  This is a book for people who are willing to think about big issues.<br \/>\nTake Away: Beware of things you\u2019ve easily believed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How things really are Job 5: What a blessing when God steps in and corrects you! If I work my way through the book of Job and pick out various quotes from Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar, and Eliju and then present them to about any Christian I think they\u2019d find the words quite acceptable. On the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1505,7],"tags":[133,303,1044,1049,1115],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5072"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5072"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5072\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14720,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5072\/revisions\/14720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}