Job had true friends because he was a true friend in kind. When the three men heard of his troubles, they didn’t shrug their shoulders and say it was well deserved or that it’s what you get for being a double-dealing weasel; they made a plan to visit Job and mourn with him in his time of travail.
Sometimes, people will say behind your back what they
wouldn’t dare say to your face. Their true heart, feelings, and what they think
of you come out when a third party delivers news to them regarding something
that’s happened to you because you’re not there, and they don’t have to put on
airs.
Sometimes, the response by someone who was supposed to be a
friend of another to their predicament is so vitriolic and hate-filled as to
shock you into silence. Because I used to travel back and forth to Romania a
lot, back before the time of Zoom calls and instant messages, I’d be used as
what I’d come to affectionately call a news mule. Everyone in church knew I was
planning a trip, so they’d come by the apartment with either a letter, a small
package, or a pair of shoes and ask if I would be so kind as to deliver these
things to family and friends. It got to the point that I’d barely have room for
a pair of pants and a shirt in my allotted two seventy-pound suitcases because
if you say yes to one person, you have to say yes to everyone else; otherwise,
they’ll infer some nefarious reason as to why you said no, or think you harbor
ill will toward them.
People will take advantage of your kind nature if they can,
and if you give an inch, they’ll take a mile. If you say you’re willing to
deliver a letter to their grandmother, they’ll show up with a forty-pound audio
mixing board and even give you instructions to pack it well and make sure it
doesn’t get damaged en route. Have you seen how they throw suitcases onto those
carts at the airport? I’m not guaranteeing that it will make it in one piece,
never mind that it will function when it gets there.
Eventually, it got to the point that I was running an amateur
DHL service without getting paid every time I’d go back to the homeland, and I
realized the easiest way out of my predicament was to not tell anyone I was
planning a trip, or when I was going back, and just like that, I had enough
room in my suitcases for my own changes of clothing.
During one such trip, the mother of a man I knew in church
asked me to pass on some news about one of his neighborhood friends who’d
gotten into an accident and had to have their leg amputated because it was too
badly mangled and couldn’t be saved. I’d gotten into the habit of always
carrying a notebook with me because it was just too much to keep track of in my
brain, so I wrote it down and who it was meant for. When I got back home after
a Sunday service, I went up to him and gave him the news that his mother had
asked me to pass on.
I don’t know what had transpired between the two men, but it
was evident that his mother was not in the loop because after telling him of
his friend’s troubles, he just shrugged his shoulders and said, sometimes we
get what we deserve. I just stood there with my mouth half open, not able to
think of anything to say. Even if they’d had a falling out, his reaction and
response was needlessly cruel, and it made me see him in a whole new light.
One’s true friends are revealed in times of trouble. Job’s
friends heard, and their first reaction was to come to be with him, comfort
him, and mourn with him. They didn’t send flowers or a card; they went out of
their way and put their lives on hold to travel to where Job was and see what,
if anything, they could do to help him in his moment of need.
Job 2:12-13, “And when they raised their eyes from afar, and
did not recognize him, they lived their voices and wept; and each one tore his
robe and sprinkled dust on his head toward heaven. So they sat down with him on
the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for
they saw that his grief was very great.”
These three men did something Job’s own brothers hadn’t,
which was to come to him and be with him in his time of devastation. Yes, Job
had brothers; we are told this in the latter chapters of the book, but the only
people to show up were these three friends. Surely, Job had helped a multitude
of people closer to home along the way. He was, after all, a generous man who
gave freely of his goods, yet none came to offer words of comfort in his grief.
He was forgotten and dispensed with as soon as they saw nothing they could
benefit from him by way of the material.
When doing a kindness to someone, whether a stranger or a
friend, it’s instinctual to expect reciprocity, or at the least gratitude. Sometimes,
you don’t get either, and this is why we are commanded to do all things as unto
the Lord, knowing that He keeps track of it all and will reward us in due season.
If we are generous or magnanimous because we expect accolades or for someone to
return the favor, we’re doing it for the wrong reasons anyway and will have no
part of the reward we otherwise would have had.
Choose your friends wisely. It is advice I’ve received over
the years from various gray-haired souls, and I’ve taken it to heart. Too many
nowadays let people who ought not to be into their inner circle just to boast that
they have so many friends. I’m neither cold nor standoffish, but it takes me a
while to call someone my friend because I have to know that they truly are. Once
that occurs, and I call someone my friend, I’m as loyal as a shelter-rescued
pit bull. Yes, that type of loyalty has come back to bite me when those to
which I’d shown loyalty did not reciprocate in kind, but I know of no other way
to be.
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