Ouch, Eliphaz, that was kind of harsh. After all Job has said and done and questioned and agonized over in front of his friends, one of them still turns around and says, "You must be lying." But can you blame him, really? Eliphaz has been raised to think that God punishes the wicked and that He alone can see what others cannot. I'm not sure how I would feel if I were in Eliphaz' predicament. I do feel, however, that maybe I would have worded things a bit more PC. Though, this is Eliphaz' third response to Job, and Job is getting ready to speak for the eighth time. In other words, this is a long conversation. Now, think about long conversations you've had - the ones that go on and on and on, and nothing ever gets resolved. Maddening those! Seems you just go around in circles. And Job is going around in circles with his friends in the same manner. And it SEEMS they are getting nowhere (except maybe more angry with one another), but when you start looking at the arguments coupled with Job's responses, you start seeing how Job is arriving at answers through this entire process … and he doesn't even realize it yet.

I know we've talked about a lot of the same things over and over in the Book of Job, but that's kind of the theme of the story - confidence in God through redundancy. I'm not sure that will even make sense in a few weeks, but right now, it sure does, and I hope you are building on the foundations and layers and that Job is establishing for us in this beautiful epic poem.

Writing prompt: redundancy

Write about something you've had to do over and over and over again in order to perfect it.

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