A Job Friend

I have been listening to a CD by a guest speaker at our church, Bro. Wade McKinney.  He spoke on the “Breath of the Rainmaker” out of Job 14:7-9.  This passage is after Job’s tribulations and he is commenting on a plucked up by the roots tree.  It is a powerful message about the wild olive trees and how new life sprouts around destroyed ones.  It doesn’t matter if they’ve been chopped down, burnt or uprooted by a storm, at the first hint of rain buds come from the roots. 

Bro. McKinney paints a very poignant picture of Job and the things around him as he looks down this hill at that tree.  But what he says about Job’s friends caught my attention this time.  One said, “If you had done it this way…”.  Another said, “There must be some sin in your life…”.  These are two friends who, at this moment, are oh so religious when he just needs a relationship.

Makes me wonder; how often—in trying to be a Christian friend—I just managed to be religious and not a friend.  We do have our clichés and are not afraid to pull them out. Especially, when we don’t know what to say (hint:  sometimes it’s better to keep our mouths shut and give a hug instead).

There are times when we don’t understand what is going on.  And, we definitely don’t have all the answer.  That’s okay.  That realization, for me, has been a long time coming.  I have said before, I am a dot your ‘i’s; cross your ‘t’s kind of person.  So, you can imagine how not knowing affects me. 

I do know I don’t want to hear clichés.  So, I try not to spout them off to anyone else.  I’ll admit, though, clichés are safer than saying ‘I don’t know’.  And, they fit into dotting ‘i’s and crossing ‘t’s very well. 

Even though our clichés are rooted in truth, they rarely help in that moment simply because they have become clichés.  At a later date when things have settled down and you can discuss the truth of the clichés, trot them out; nothing wrong with that.

I know different people handle things differently.  But since the Bible tell us to treat others like we want to be treated (Luke 6:31), I’ll skip the clichés, speak a few heart felt words, give that hug and try not to be a Job friend.