Job 16:2–3 2“I have heard many things like these; you are miserable comforters, all of you! 3Will your long-winded speeches never end? What ails you that you keep on arguing?
Some people seem to bury other people with their words. You know the type. They always have an opinion on every subject. It is as if they had Google place the Encyclopedia chip in their brain, and they access some hidden file when needed, or even when not needed.
We have gotten used to politicians indulging in the multiplicity of words trap. After a while we stop listening to the details. The news media have certainly mastered the art. Like the teacher in Charlie Brown, we just tune them out.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t like to be tuned out. If I speak, I want people to listen to what I have to say. I think I have learned over the years to speak less and say more. I think I choose my words much more carefully now that I did when I was young.
Like the teenager who tunes out a parent, we have learned to tune others out. We hear the words, but then we want to do a hand puppet mocking of the person talking. But we are too polite for that, so we roll our eyes and smile, but we continue to pretend to listen.
What I find interesting is that both Job and his friends are tired of the long-winded speeches. Here at the beginning of one of Job’s replies he confronts his friends about the length of their attacks. And then at the beginning of the next friends speech, his friend complains about his long replies. They recognize the fault in the other person, but they don’t recognize it in themselves.
Those in Job’s shoes feel like no one is listening to them. They feel alone. They are desperate for someone to come and sit with them silently. Words are not what is needed. All Job wants is some comfort.
But comfort is not something you can stream on demand. Job feels abandoned by God and alone. He had a gauge on his own heart. But in the middle of this unrelenting grief, Job seems to have lost his bearing. He thought the world generally worked in a certain way. But now he can’t reconcile this tragedy with what he gathered about the LORD.
His head can say, “The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away” (1:21), but his heart has not caught up with his mind. He knows the textbook answer, but the textbook wasn’t written for moments like these. The textbook was written for normal moments, not these extraordinary times.
So what can we draw from this verse, this moment in Job’s life. I think we can draw that words, especially too many words, are not helpful. We can learn to use fewer words and pack them with meaning.
Words should be like the salt sprinkled on our food, not the main course. No one eats a diet of salt. And when there is too much salt, it can’t be eaten. We spit out food that is too salty. We instinctively know that it isn’t good for us.
Words are often the same way, especially when someone is feeling alone and rejected. We want a few sprinkled on our experience. We want the flavor changed only slightly, shifting it to the right or the left. We are in our grief and sorrow before the words, and we know that we will be in our grief and sorrow after the words. So, perhaps, the most we want is a touch of spice to help make our solitary chew more bearable.
So let us learn to choose carefully what we speak to those in pain. We can’t so change the flavor of their suffering so as to make it a menu item on our favorite restaurant’s daily specials. Suffering will always be a bitter pill to swallow. The most we can hope to do is shift it slightly.
Jesus’ life, suffering, death and resurrection have taken the sting out of humanity’s enemy. But death still stinks. Suffering still stinks. Pain still stinks. But the smell is only temporary.
One of these days, life will fully engulf this realm of death, and old will be made new. Oh how I long for that day! How about you?
The Arnold Journey 