Don't torment me - Comfort me!! Job 20-21

Zophar means well! In fact all of Job's friends mean to comfort him and support him in his pain (and, he is in pain ... 21:6). However, from Job's perspective his friends are more terrors than comforters (21:34). Job goes to the extreme to tell his friends they are not only "NOT" comforting him, they are full of lies and falshood. Here is where the one needing comfort needs to realize the limits of his comforters. Just as his friends want Job to be "just" and "righteous" in his actions (and therefore avoid this pain ... that must be on him due to sin), so too Job wants his friends to be "righteous" and "true" in their response to him. He wants them to cut him slack but he doesn't cut them any slack. He can be who he is but they must not be wrong in their comfort of him. Since the spirit of God has given us a look in the background of what God is doing, we can see that BOTH Job and his friends are wrong. Never-the-less, the onus of responsibility has to be on Job's friends to provide encouraging counsel and not condemning words. There certainly is a time for condemnation. However, there is a time to comfort those in affliction. We should expect Job's perspective to be off balance. After all, he is in stress. That is not an excuse to be doctrinally off base, but it does happen and certainly explains why he might be. But, Job's friends are coming across as condemning to Job rather than the comfort they set out to provide (16:2). Even if we have to deliver "truth" to those in pain and suffering, we ought not to come across as tormentors to them, adding to their pain. They may reject us but they shouldn't be able to see condemnation in us. Paul tells us to speak truth but to do so with the governer of love (Eph. 4:15). So, if you get a chance today to comfort someone, do so with genuine confort, speak the truth but don't add to their torment.