Man, I feel for Job

I hope all two of my readers are familiar with the story of Job, the righteous man who lived a really long time ago, but whom was tested by Satan to see if he was really loyal to God. It was bad enough that he lost everything except his health but Job faced more difficulties. Sometime after he lost everything he had, Job fell seriously ill.

His family is dead, his riches are gone, his health is failing, and what do his friends do? They come to have a theological debate with Job as he lies there in his misery.

First, this dude Eliphaz says Job screwed up, and he should be praising God for every "punishment" God has thrown his way.

Job defends himself but Bildad thinks Job's got it all wrong, that obviously bad things don't happen to good people. Der. If Job is suffering, then he must have turned away from God. Job is suffering, ergo he must have turned away from God.

The truth was, Job didn't turn away from God. He was as devout as ever, quite possibly the most devout man on the scarcely populated planet at the time!

Job defends himself again, and his buddy Zophar steps up and says that Job is so bad, that even if God forgot some of his badness, Job would still be too bad a person to claim half of what he had! WTF? (That's "What the Faith?" for those of you unfamiliar with the acronym.)

Over and over again, Job's friends butt heads with Job, tag-team style. Eventually, they realize they're not getting anywhere with Job (as if they had any thing worth saying!). Thus, they concede Job cannot be reasoned with, so who steps in?

A snot-nosed kid named Elihu! I mean, just look at that name! How dorky can you get? It's like a cross between "aloha" and "toodleoo"!

Now, if I had been Job, I'd have probably told the punk he was twelve and he should go back to the junglegym.

Whether or not that's what Job had been about to say, we don't know because someone else decided to question Job. By 'someone else,' I mean /the LORD God Almighty/, speaking through a storm! It's alright if your knees are trembling for Job's sake. Mine are.

I feel for Job right about now. Granted, I've never been through everything Job went through, but still, he's had quite a day.