When everything is taken away, including your family, and when even your closest confidant, your own wife, turns against you; when every other thing is removed, and God does not seem close – this is when depression can hunt you down to devour your sense of worship.

After this Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth. 2 And Job said: 3 "Let the day perish on which I was born, and the night that said, 'A man is conceived.' 4 Let that day be darkness! May God above not seek it, nor light shine upon it. Job 3:1-4 ESV

Job had nothing left. Or did he? Everything for which Job had worked and saved – all his labor and every earthly thing he ever loved was gone. Or was it? Job’s friends would not draw near, and he was alone. Or was he?

Satan loves to weave deceitful schemes around us. He sets up idols and distractions to keep us from loving and worshiping God above all. He knows that God wired us for dominion and relationship, and for fruitful work. He uses that nature against us, and our relationship with our Creator.

A friend cannot tell someone these things in the middle of the battle with Satan. But a friend can prepare you before it happens. Love God above all, and forsake all else as your chief aim. Relationships grounded in the Father last forever. They are never lost. The things you “own” are illusory. They are just dust and rust. Fix your eyes on Jesus. Be possessed by the Spirit of Christ. Be strengthened ahead of time, so that when difficulty comes, you will know where your help comes from.

Now when Job's three friends heard of all this evil that had come upon him, they came each from his own place, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. They made an appointment together to come to show him sympathy and comfort him. 12 And when they saw him from a distance, they did not recognize him. And they raised their voices and wept, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads toward heaven. 13 And they sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great. Job 2:11-13 ESV

There is a scene in the movie As Good As It Gets in which the friends of a horribly assaulted and beaten man come to visit him while he is laying in his hospital bed. They cannot hide their horror as they look at his wounds. The scene is intended to be comical, and indeed it is, however, it also demonstrates how important a good word is as we sit to suffer with our own wounded friends. Job’s three friends grieved with him. That was good. But at some point, a friend must lift the spirit of the wounded. It does not appear Job’s friends knew the cue for when to worship with their wounded friend.

Lord, make my heart sensitive to the prompting of the Spirit. Father, teach me to respond to that call. Jesus, let me heal others as you are healing me.

Job did not sin by accusing God after he lost all his possessions and his family. Even after losing his health, when his wife incited him to charge God with wrongdoing, Job simply called her comments foolish, and said (Job 2:10 ESV) :

“Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?"

And “In all this Job did not sin with his lips” (same verse). What a man this Job was! There he sat with painful boils over his entire body, and yet he receives this horrible curse as if it were the same as a blessing. He trusts his Lord!

Father, make me as steadfast in my trust in you as your servant Job. Let me never forget that both good and evil come our way, but we are to rejoice in you through every circumstance. How hard this is, yet how core to our faith. I believe! Lord, help my unbelief (Mark 9:24).

I was studying Job this morning in my devotional time. Job 1. As the story goes, Job loses everything except his health. All his children are killed by a storm, and bandits steal or destroy everything he has. Death and destruction characterize his life. What does he do? (Job 1:20-22 ESV)

Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. 21 And he said, "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD." 22 In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong.

What an amazing saint! He grieves in worship on his face before the living God who never does wrong. He realizes his context. Job acknowledges the rights of his creator.

Lord, make me like that! I don’t want the death and destruction. That’s not what I mean, although it is your right to do what you want with your own creation. But give me the same heart you gave Job. When I grieve, Holy Spirit let me grieve in worship. In my loss, Jesus, let me see that all I need I have in you. Father, my Creator, let me always rest in your gracious provision. Holy Trinity, you have given me all I need, and I need nothing else. Let me live in poverty of things, but the riches of my inheritance: You!