Job 11:13-18 -- On Lessons from Zophar

"If thou prepare thine heart, and stretch out thine hands toward him;
If iniquity be in thine hand, put it far away, and let not wickedness dwell in thy tabernacles.
For then shalt thou lift up thy face without spot; yea, thou shalt be steadfast, and shalt not fear:
Because thou shalt forget thy misery, and remember it as waters that pass away:
And thine age shall be clearer than the noonday; thou shalt shine forth, thou shalt be as the morning.
And thou shalt be secure, because there is hope; yea, thou shalt dig about thee, and thou shalt take thy rest in safety."
Job 11:13-18


I like what Zophar, one of Job's friends, has to say here. All of it is good, but three specific things stand out to me. The idea of preparing our hearts, the idea of forgetting our misery, and the idea of being secure because there is hope. :)

The idea of preparing our hearts is a cool one because it reminds us that there is more involved in reaching out to God than just the physical reaching. We have to do some spiritual work as well... some self-evaluation, some repentance and change, and prepare our hearts to accept what God has to say. Too often I think we go to God only willing to accept one answer, and that inhibits communication... that is us putting our will before his and not being ready to actually listen to his wisdom. If we ask for help with something, God loves us and he will help in that way if it is wise, but sometimes we ask for things that we shouldn't have for some reason, or to intervene in other people's lives, or to save someone from death when God knows that it is that person's time to graduate into the next life.

Forgetting our misery is an important concept because sometimes we make it the central point of our lives and believe that the bad times are going to last forever, and that if God really cared he would save us from whatever it is... but we aren't seeing the whole picture there, and that God *will* save us from every single thing that we go through in this life, and it will all fade into the background and not be dramatic to us anymore. We will get past it, and things will be okay... it gets better. :) The story moves on, and there is a happy ending. A good thing to remember, and though it can be hard to believe when we are in the middle of the hardest thing that we have ever faced, it is still true. God will wipe away all tears from our eyes, and someday he will wrap us in his arms, and it will be okay.

Being secure in hope is important to me because this is something we can have right now, if we trust God. Even though things around us are uncertain and scary, because God is our anchor, we can know and trust that things are going to work out. That doesn't mean that we don't have to do our part to prepare our hearts, or that things are going to necessarily work out the way that we want or expect... but they will work out according to God's will, and things will be okay in the end... and because they will be okay *then,* we can also have joy *now,* trusting rather than fearing, and finding the positive things in the world around us even when they are hard to pick out. God's presence in our lives allows us to rise above the darkness and find the light in the world around us.

Today, let's remember what Zophar taught us. To prepare our hearts for God's will, and trust in it, to know that there is hope and peace and joy waiting for us, and that our trials will someday be forgotten, and to be sucure in hope and able to find the goodness and light even in the darkest pits of our lives.