8 “As for me, I would seek God,
and to God would I commit my cause,
9 who does great things and unsearchable,
marvelous things without number:
10 he gives rain on the earth
and sends waters on the fields;
11 he sets on high those who are lowly,
and those who mourn are lifted to safety.
12 He frustrates the devices of the crafty,
so that their hands achieve no success.
13 He catches the wise in their own craftiness,
and the schemes of the wily are brought to a quick end.
14 They meet with darkness in the daytime
and grope at noonday as in the night.
15 But he saves the needy from the sword of their mouth
and from the hand of the mighty.
16 So the poor have hope,
and injustice shuts her mouth.
The above words are being spoken to Job. Job is in the midst of an extreme crisis. He is has lost everything in his life that he values except his wife who simply tells him to curse God and die. In chapter three we read that Job wants to die. He wishes he had never been born. His mental state is not good. He is depressed and suicidal. We don’t think of Bible characters in that state of mind. But, Job is suffering from mental illness as a result of the trauma he has experienced. Three friends come to “comfort” him in this state of depression. The first friend is Eliphaz. He is the one speaking the above words. In context he is off as he believes Job is experiencing this because he has done something to invoke God’s wrath. Like most of us trying to “comfort” our friends or family who are “depressed,” Eliphaz is woefully under prepared. His theory in life is bad things happen to bad people.
This is bad, therefore Job must be bad and we all did not know it. The one thing that he does right, however, is in the above verses. Despite his wrong premise, the above words that he stated to Job are correct. In the midst of our struggle it is right to recall that God is the one who cares for all these things that Eliphaz lists out. Eliphaz’s problem is that he has the right solution, but has already given Job the wrong cause. When Job responds in in the next chapters we will read that Job can’t get past Eliphaz telling him the wrong cause for his problems and therefore will miss the solutions, entirely. When working with others who are in a struggle, it is not always necessary to expand them why something is happening ... especially when we don’t know all the variables. There was no way the Eliphaz was going to know that Satan was allowed to beat Job with a stick, almost till death (chapters one and two). But, he just had to say this is why! It might be smarter at times to just say, God’s got this! That is what he says in the above verses. He should have said, “Job, God’s got this! Why this is happening, I have no idea. But, God, like all things in life, has control over this!!” Instead he says, “Job, you are a bad man. Confess your sin. God can make it right but you have to confess you are evil, first.” We might be better to point to God as the solution before we think we always know the problem. God’s got this!
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