Click this link to hear an audio version of the below text narrated by SOTH member Jerry Rhinehart:
Job 19:13-22 (NIV)
13 “He has alienated my family from me; my acquaintances are completely estranged from me. 14 My relatives have gone away; my closest friends have forgotten me. 15 My guests and my female servants count me a foreigner; they look on me as on a stranger. 16 I summon my servant, but he does not answer, though I beg him with my own mouth. 17 My breath is offensive to my wife; I am loathsome to my own family.
18 Even the little boys scorn me; when I appear, they ridicule me. 19 All my intimate friends detest me; those I love have turned against me. 20 I am nothing but skin and bones; I have escaped only by the skin of my teeth. 21 “Have pity on me, my friends, have pity, for the hand of God has struck me. 22 Why do you pursue me as God does? Will you never get enough of my flesh?
False Friends—Find one or more traits that describe a false friend.
Sometimes life just isn’t fair. When things are going really wrong for me, I feel rejected by family and friends, I suffocate under my own self-pity. I focus on the wicked people who seem to get away with literal murder and prosper, yet I see the innocent suffering. All is not right with the world. But You never said that it would be easy or fair. Job is an example of that fact. However, I know that this life is not the end and one day You will make all things right. You are my redeemer even when my friends and family fail to comfort me. You are my eternal hope and salvation no matter what the situation. You are greater than anything that can happen here on earth. Even though situations did not work out as I had hoped due to the injustice of individuals, organizations or systems, I still trust that one-day total justice will prevail. Help me to live each day with this eternal perspective. Amen.