Where Are You Looking?

O. T. # 1128  "Where Are You Looking?
Jan. 8, 2018
Job 8
Don't look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too.  Philippians 2:4

LET IT GLOW

I have noticed that when life is going good, then I am more concerned about others. It is when I am in a trial, working through a problem, that I am looking at myself more, focusing on the bad situation. But the way out of the pit is to look to the needs of others and help them. That helps me in the long run, getting me out of my pit of despair. Maybe Job's friends could have used our key verse in their lives.

You are nothing more than other than a windbag, Job. Can you imagine Job hearing that after the first of his friends, Eliphaz preached repentance, basing his words on experience.

His reasonings came from experience-I have learned, I have observed, I have seen. (Swindoll)

 hat are you guys doing to poor Job in his condition? With his 10 children buried up on the hill? Since he was as poor as a nail? Had a wife nagging him to curse God and die?

Job's second friend, named Bildad, is different. He bases his words on tradition. He urged Job to go back into history and check what happened there.

Swindoll gives us an outline of Bildad's sermon:

1. The Character of God (verses 3-7) Look Up, Job!
2. The Wisdom of the Past (verses 8-10) Look Back, Job!
3. The Evidence of Nature (verses 11-19) Look Around, Job!
4. Concluding Comments (verses 20-22)

Because Job's children sinned, God judged them, thus killing them.  If Job would repent, then God would restore his health and wealth. He is a withering, dying hypocrite. He has sinned and God had uprooted him. His hope is in perishing. Couldn't Bildad have shown  little more tact and compassion in his words to Job? After all, Job had not forgotten God, nor was he godless, but remained a godly man during his friends' visits. He did not deserve all that had happened to him. Satan was behind it all. (Easy for me to say, I didn't live through it.)

The tradition of our faith as Christians is based upon God's Word and the life of Jesus. Aren't we thankful that God's compassions fail not, and His mercies are new every morning?

LET IT GROW

Bildad instructed Job to:

• pray to God,
• seek the favor of the Almighty,
• be pure,
• live with integrity,

then God will raise you up and restore your happy home. And though you started with little, you will end with much.

Sometimes changes in our life are needed so we can be more like those characteristics.  Sometimes they achieve good results and other times our circumstances do not change. Our life is in God's hands. Will we accept good and bad? Will we live for God's glory or for our self?

LET IT GO

Pray more, seek to please God more, have pure thoughts, live with integrity.
Stop looking at my circumstances, rely on God, then take a look at others.
Look up, look back, and look around.
Learn what God is like, looking up.
Learn life lessons from my past and the past of others, looking back.
See the needs of those in suffering times and what could help encourage them, looking around.