{"id":5090,"date":"2023-10-16T22:15:19","date_gmt":"2023-10-17T03:15:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nazareneblogs.org\/pastorscott\/?p=5090"},"modified":"2023-10-16T22:15:19","modified_gmt":"2023-10-17T03:15:19","slug":"devotional-on-job-18","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/devotional-on-job-18\/","title":{"rendered":"Devotional on Job"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><figure style=\"width: 1600px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-OVO7euaxB-4\/XytWOw_TKaI\/AAAAAAABFso\/J6icGm-87Hkp8kO3oiFGVsLmxwjD5bFrACPcBGAsYHg\/s1600\/IMG_20190813_150815.jpg\" width=\"1600\" height=\"913\" class=\"size-large\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">2019 &#8211; Niagara Gorge, NY<\/figcaption><\/figure><br \/>\nBetter to say nothing<br \/>\nJob 16: What a bunch of miserable comforters!<br \/>\nWhen Job&#8217;s three friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, arrive at his side they\u2019re overwhelmed with what they find.  They cry out and rip their clothes in mourning.  Then for seven days they sit with him, speechless at the horror of it all.  It appears that it\u2019s during these days that they come to a decision to go with the status quo because once they start talking they merely state and restate the &#8220;folk wisdom&#8221; of the day.  As they do that, Job turns his fevered face toward them and denounces them as &#8220;miserable comforters.&#8221;  I think they are better comforters sitting there for a week, broken and speechless at what they see than when they start reasoning with Job about all of this.  There\u2019s a lesson to be learned here.  People who are suffering pain and grief don&#8217;t really need our platitudes or our so-called wisdom.  Even when we don&#8217;t know &#8220;why&#8221; things are as they are our presence matters.  The scriptures tell us to &#8220;mourn with those who mourn.&#8221;  We aren&#8217;t called to explain it all but we are told to care and help the broken-hearted by sharing in their sorrow.<br \/>\nTake Away: When we don\u2019t know what to say or do we don\u2019t need to say or do anything \u2013 just be there, sharing in the moment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Better to say nothing Job 16: What a bunch of miserable comforters! When Job&#8217;s three friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, arrive at his side they\u2019re overwhelmed with what they find. They cry out and rip their clothes in mourning. Then for seven days they sit with him, speechless at the horror of it all. It [&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":[133,190,521,798],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5090"}],"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=5090"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5090\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14736,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5090\/revisions\/14736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}