Day 3: Wrong assumptions - miserable comforters
“You say to God, ‘My beliefs are flawless and I am pure in your sight.’ Oh, how I wish that God would speak, that He would open His lips against you” (Job 11:4-5)
Heavenly Father, Sovereign God, You alone understand the enormity of the weight of sin under which the whole creation groans (Romans 8:22). You alone know the countless perfect details of Your original creation, and You understand the devastating extent of our fall.
Your word is clear that with sin, death came into the world (Romans 5:12), and with it the diseases, circumstances, and events, that cause death, and chaos, and destruction. And in our fallen world we all experience suffering, pain, sickness, disease and disaster.
While You have shown us instances where suffering or judgment was the consequence of individual or specific sin, we only know that is the case where You told us. Only You can trace all the threads of cause and effect, results and consequences, and You did not assign that judgment or responsibility to us.
In fact, Scripture warns us about trying to attribute suffering to personal sin. The Lord Jesus cautioned His disciples against thinking that those who had experienced calamity were worse sinners, or more guilty than others (Luke 13:1-5). He taught that we are all exposed to the ravages of sin in the world, and we all only have ultimate hope in repentance.
Yet in Your kindness You extend Your hand of Providence over all—our Father in heaven causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous (Matthew 5:45).
Lord, You are The Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God (2 Corinthians 1:3-4). Thank You for meeting us in our own pain.
Teach us to minister comfort—so many around us are suffering; so many are in pain. So many need sincere friends to come alongside with hearts of tender compassion. Help us to be those friends, those neighbors, those colleagues, those passers-by.
Keep our lips from speaking harsh words of judgment like Job's friend Zophar the Naamathite—so sure, so smug, so arrogant in his assumptions that he wished "God would speak, that He would open His lips against [Job].” Yet in the end when God did speak it was against Zophar and company that He spoke: "I am angry with you...My servant Job will pray for you, and I will accept his prayer and not deal with you according to your folly... (Job 42:7-8).
Father, rid us of the prejudices, the labels, and the judgments that lead us to wrong assumptions and make us miserable comforters instead of genuine ministers of comfort. Remove the lens of judgment that only see tax collectors and sinners, addicts and vagrants, prostitutes and outcasts, foreigners and outsiders.
Let us see instead broken souls, and remember that You are near to the brokenhearted, and save those who are crushed in spirit (Psalm 34:18). Help us likewise to draw near to them. Thank You for Your mercy and grace to us, undeserving as we are. Help us to extend mercy and grace to others.
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