Presence and Silence 

Prayer: Father, may I glean insight on how to console and comfort a friend in despair. Amen.  

Reading: Job 6: key: vs. 14
¹⁴ “A despairing person should have the kindness of his friend,
    even if he forsakes the fear of Shaddai. 

Attention: Have you ever felt despairing? Have you ever been so low, you felt you could not get any lower? Remember, Job is experiencing a compounding of grief (he lost everything including his family), and physical pain unlike anything which we may have experienced.  

According to MedicalMD, “An active boil or carbuncle is contagious: the infection can spread to other parts of the person’s body or to other people through skin-to-skin contact or the sharing of personal items.” A carbuncle is multiple boils, usually located in one spot. Remember, Job had painful boils “from the sole of his foot to the top of his head.” The text is silent if Job used any sort of medication or pain suppressant. However, it appears that he self-treated, “scraping himself (with a piece of broken pottery) while he was sitting among the ashes (2:7).” What is the benefit of ash? “Wood ash has long been regarded as a bacteria killer that can also enhance the healing process of wounds and burns.” Job was using wood ash to kill the bacteria.  

I want to propose that Job’s friends did the right thing for the first week of Job’s illness. In chapter two we are told, “they did not recognize him, and they raised their voices and wept. Each one tore his robe and threw dust into the air onto their heads. Then they sat with him on the ground for seven days and seven nights. No one spoke a word to him because they saw that his pain was very great.” I am of the opinion that his friends did more consoling and comforting Job by their presence and silence than they did when they opened their mouth.  

The act of tearing their clothes signified to Job their deeply felt grief over his grief and suffering. By throwing dust in the air and onto their heads, they symbolically were humbling themselves before Job and Adonai. They were equating themselves as being as low as dust and seeking God’s mercy and forgiveness.  

May we seek to comfort and console, rather than speculate and to chastise and condemn.  

Action: I will seek to comfort and console a friend in despair.  

Yield: I will give away the right to chastise a grieving friend who is suffering.  

Engage: I will engage with my grieving friends with presence and silence.  

Relationship: I am being Christ when I console.  

Prayer: Father, I thank You for the example of the friends who providentially came to Job and were consoling for the first week. May I be that comforting, consoling friend. Amen.  

Memory Verse: Job 2:13
¹³ Then they sat with him on the ground for seven days and seven nights. No one spoke a word to him because they saw that his pain was very great.

Music Video: Kari Jobe—I Am Not Alone  

Remember, “Abide in Yeshua, today!”