“But who can restrain himself from speaking?” Job 4:2
Even the most introverted, quieted individual can be brought to quick words with one simple phrase, “what do you think?” Admit it, people like to help. But usually, they do their best to help not with their hands, but with their proffered words. We spit on our mental palms, rub them together and get ready to help the other guy with our tremendous words of great wisdom. And many times, for the extrovert, that deep wisdom is offered even without being prompted. We love to analyze the other guy. We love to solve the problems of others using our great mental abilities and then easily inform them of their next steps of action. The only problem? Man in his own thinking cannot ever grasp the complexities of God and how He moves in a life. And without that crucial bit of data, analyzing another life is as fruitless as standing at the base of a mighty oak and telling it which direction to grow.
After Job finishes his dramatic and dark monologue in chapter 3, the first to rebut him is the wise and scholarly Eliphaz. The name Eliphaz means “God is strength.” He was from Teman, an Edomite city that was known as a center of wisdom. He was a mental businessman and the product he pilfered was philosophy. If you were to sit and listen to Eliphaz wax his wisdom, you would be impressed. He was educated, he was experienced, and he spoke with words that seemed to touch the heavens in their elevation. Yet as he advises Job in his great wisdom as to why Job is suffering so greatly, there is only one problem. He is wrong. (Job 42:7-8) You see, Eliphaz was counseling another in his own wisdom, not in the wisdom of God. He was advising another from his own finite gray matter, not Holy Spirit infused infinite gray matter. To the vain, to the educated, to the lofty in mind, advising another is as easy as drawing the next breath.
Today be careful if you consider yourself the answer machine for the rest of the world. The problems and the solutions to them that seem so apparent to you, are not as they seem. You see, Eliphaz did not have the ability to read the first two chapters of the very book of God’s Word in which he is recorded for all history. If he simply could have read about the two encounters in the throne room of God between satan and the Lord, he would have quickly backtracked in his advice that was so certain in the moment. Analyzing others would be oh so easy if we could just see the previous chapters of what God was intending in their lives. Yet, just as Eliphaz, we are not privy to the thoughts of God and the intentions for a life, so the advice we offer is at best, limited to a personal view. Today, instead of analyzing them, pray for them. Instead of advising others of their new course, pray for their rudder to be directed only by the hand of God. And in that way, you will be allowing the advise, counsel, and direction to come from the only one that truly sees the big picture…a picture that originates in the throne room of heaven…Almighty God.
“Counsel and sound wisdom are mine; I am understanding, power is mine.” Proverbs 8:14
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