May 12, 2026 - Job 4-11

After Job’s terrible experience, his friends come to comfort him.  And I think they genuinely were trying to help him.  In the first place, when everyone else seems to have abandoned Job, they came to him.  They sat with him and talked with him.  Their questions and counsel, however, were not particularly helpful.  Friends are good.  God gives us friends, especially Christian friends, who can gather around us and weep with us and encourage us.  How wonderful and needed are those friends!  But, as with Job, even our friends sometimes are not so helpful.  But there is One in whom we can always rest and trust.  Job discovers this, and in the end, he finds his great joy in God.  “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want . . .” (Psalm 23).  Indeed!

In heav’nly love abiding,

no change my heart shall fear;

and safe is such confiding,

for nothing changes here.

The storm may roar without me,

my heart may low be laid,

but God is round about me,

and can I be dismayed?

Wherever He may guide me,

no want shall turn me back;

my Shepherd is beside me,

and nothing can I lack.

His wisdom ever waketh;

His sight is never dim.

He knows the way He taketh,

and I will walk with Him.   -- Anna Letitia Waring (1850)