“For he knows those who are false, and he takes note of all their sins.” Job 11:11
Friends. There are good friends, close friends, and best friends. The idea that time breeds closeness and the more time spent with a friend, the better the friendship. The better the friend, the more we confide, the more we trust, and the more they influence and touch our life. But as good as the friend is, they are still human. We have all been hurt by a friend, maybe even crushed at times by behavior that was not very, well, friendly. In the case of Job, we see that as his three best friends in the world roll into town to console him, that they somehow forgot what the meaning of console was. As a result, we see that Job wrestles with his friends just as much as he is wrestling with God and his painfully diseased body. There had to be many moments where Job is simply scratching his head and wondering, are you a friend or a foe?
Chapter 11 of Job sees the third and final friend, Zophar, deliver his analysis of Job’s situation. Zophar is the harshest in his scrutinization of Job’s dilemma. All three friends have quickly come to the simple conclusion that Job is hiding some secret heinous sin from God, resulting in his horrible, sickly punishment. Their conclusion of Job’s course of action is simple. 1) fess up your evil sin to God, 2) repent of your wicked ways, and 3) simply be healed by a righteous God. Yet Zophar, in the delivery of his prognosis carves with a butcher knife, not a scalpel. He calls Job a babbler, a mocker of God, worthless, stupid, wicked, and no better than a wild donkey hoping to become tame on its own. Ouch, with a friend like this who needs an enemy? The only problem that rings true with Zophar’s discourse is a lack of fullness of wisdom. His harsh, prideful analysis of Job’s situation relied not upon Godly information, but his own arrogant interpretation. Oh, to only see these three men be able to read the first two chapters of the very book in which they are so poorly pictured.
The calling of a good friend is a high calling indeed. As you proceed in your friendly duties, how do you see your job description? Is it to deal out the harsh truths of God that only seem apparent to you, or do you see the duty of a friend to comfort and show the way to God’s healing? Job’s three friends had an odd idea of friendship indeed. They came a great distance to help Job, yet none of the three helped Job in the least. God’s Word speaks abundantly on friendship, the importance of, the point of, the rules of, and the benefit of. And one of the sweetest verses’ states that the counsel of a good friend is as sweet to the soul as perfume is to the nose. Today, count your friendships as what they truly are, a gift from God that allows you to bless that person using the scriptural advice on friendship God has given. For God tells us that friends are to be helped, forgiven, relied upon, lived with in harmony, honored above yourself, loved, served, walked with, and helped with their burdens. And in a verse that points to Jesus, we see friendship taken to the maximum, “greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13) Today, commit to being a Godly friend to those God has gifted to you as friends. And in this way, you will not only sweeten their soul, but allow yours to be sweetened in return.
“As oil and perfume give joy to the heart, so is he that is sweet to his friend in the counsel of his soul.” Proverbs 27:9
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