“So they sat down with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights, and none spoke a word unto him: for they saw that his grief was very great” – Job 2:13 (KJV).
It is easy for friends to identify with you when everything is fine, when you are on the mountain top. You may not know the commitment or sincerity of friends when you are in seasons of blessings and prosperity because success and prosperity attract the good and the bad. Everyone will want to identify with success, but failure and frustration do not attract many people. But true friends will stick to you in season and out of season because friends are for adversity. “A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity” – Proverbs 17:17 (KJV). Job’s friends sat down where he sat. They identified with his pains for seven days and seven nights.
We live in a world of uncertainty. It is only God that can keep and preserve us. One can be so rich and so favoured with material things today that one becomes the envy of one’s world. The same person can be so poor the next few years that he becomes an object of pity and ridicule. This is why we must not boast or be proud and arrogant because of privileged position of wealth or material blessings. Our boast should be in the Lord and in him only should we trust because financial and material riches are uncertain. True riches are in Christ. Who could have ever imagined that Job, the richest man in the then world, could fall so low in such a short time?
Another lesson from Job’s experience is that our wealth and blessings should impact others positively. We should be liberal with our wealth by using our money to serve God and humanity. Job touched the lives of so many people Like Dorcas. Job blessed so many lives in his good days. The friends whose lives he has so touched came to identify with him. Like all other commitments, true friendship is time tested. They were so impacted that they could not help but identify with him for those seven days and seven nights. It is possible they had the impression that the trial won’t last for long. They must have believed that Job will bounce back in a matter of weeks or months but that did not happen. When weeks ran into months and months into years they could not persevere.
It was not only job’s trial; his friends were also on a trial to show the quality and genuineness of their friendship. Their friendship did not survive the test of time because they gave up so soon. “If thou faint in the day of adversity, thy strength is small” -Proverb 24:10(KJV). Of course their friendship was very weak and selfish. They soon turned to become thorn in his flesh, accusing Job of reaping the reward of his sins.
The scriptures admonish us to show ourselves friendly by identifying with those in pains (Hebrews 13:3). Jesus is a friend that sticks closer than a brother, a merciful high priest touched with the feelings of our infirmities.
PRAYER: Lord, help me to truly love and care for others like you did.
Rev. Vincent Diolu