Discomforting Friends

It's one thing to suffer traumatic experiences, it's another to have your friends bloviate about why it's your fault. Job has had to see his possessions destroyed, his children killed, his health deteriorate, his wife despise him and now he sits in ashes, covered with soars. When the first friend proposed uttering a word to Job, he went off for 2 chapters. We will learn from these men far more about how to NOT be someone's friend. 

And Job picks up this idea quickly.

Job 6:14–17 (ESV) “He who withholds kindness from a friend forsakes the fear of the Almighty. 15 My brothers are treacherous as a torrent-bed, as torrential streams that pass away, 16 which are dark with ice, and where the snow hides itself. 17 When they melt, they disappear; when it is hot, they vanish from their place.

I love the NIV's phrasing for verse 15:

Job 6:15 (NIV) But my brothers are as undependable as intermittent streams, as the streams that overflow

What is an intermittent stream? look at the next verses in the NLT:

Job 6:16–17 (NLT) when it is swollen with ice and melting snow. 17 But when the hot weather arrives, the water disappears. The brook vanishes in the heat.

Job's friends are like abundant water that's frozen or evaporated water that's non-existent. What a picture of horrible friends. When they are there, they offer no relief, when needed but absent they do the same. 

Thankfully, Jesus is not like Job's friends. He's the one who comes along with us and suffers for us and with us. He is the God of all comfort. He comforts us in our trouble. 

2 Corinthians 1:3–4 (ESV) Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

If you have not received this comfort, you won't be able to comfort others. It's that simple. 

And yet I wonder who is looking to the friends of this life for what only Jesus offers - true comfort and peace in the midst of our troubles. 

Job continues to defend himself before his accusing friends. In this chapter, we see the picture Job presents of an innocent sufferer. He literally asks his friends to find the fault in him.

Job 6:24–25 (ESV) “Teach me, and I will be silent; make me understand how I have gone astray. 25 How forceful are upright words! But what does reproof from you reprove?

There was no sin in Job they could find. They could only assume. They are the friends we do not need in our struggles. 

Unlike Job's friends, Jesus is the true friend who could find fault and doesn't. He hears us and bears our burdens, he carried our sorrows with Him on the cross. No friend comes close to the friend that sticks closer than a brother.