Insult to Injury

Welcome to today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread. Today's reading titled Insult to Injury was written by Mart De Haan. During the golden age of radio, Fred Allen used comedic pessimism to bring smiles to a generation living in the shadows of economic depression and a world at war. His sense of humor was born out of personal pain. Having lost his mother before he was three, he was later estranged from his father who struggled with addictions. He once rescued a young boy from the traffic of a busy New York City street with a memorable, What's the matter with you kid?

Don't you want to grow up and have troubles? The life of Job unfolds in such troubled realism. When his early expressions of faith eventually gave way to despair, his friends multiplied his pain by adding insult to injury. With good sounding arguments, they insisted that if he could admit his wrongs and learn from God's correction, he would find strength to laugh in the face of his problems. Job's comforters meant well while being so wrong. Never could they have imagined that they would one day be invoked as examples of, with friends like that, who needs enemies. Never could they have imagined the relief of Job praying for them or why they would need prayer at all. Never could they have imagined how they foreshadow the accusers of the one who suffered so much misunderstanding to become the source of our greatest joys.

Today's Our Daily Bread devotional scripture reading is from Job chapter 5 verses 17 through 27. Blessed is the one whom God corrects. So do not despise the discipline of the Almighty, for He wounds, but He also binds up.

He injures, but His hands also heal. From six calamities He will rescue you. In seven, no harm will touch you. In famine, He will deliver you from death, and in battle, from the stroke of the sword. You will be protected from the lash of the tongue and need not fear when destruction comes. You will laugh at destruction and famine and need not fear the wild animals, for you will have a covenant with the stones of the field, and the wild animals will be at peace with you. You will know that your tent is secure. You will take stock of your property and find nothing missing. You will know that your children will be many and your descendants like the grass of the earth. You will come to the grave in full vigor, like sheaves gathered in season.

We have examined this, and it is true. So hear it and apply it to yourself. Would you pray with me now? Father, it can be so easy to jump to conclusions about why someone is suffering.

And in our desire to help, we can actually heap on more pain, just like Job's friends did. So when our loved ones experience suffering, would you help us to soothe their pain by reminding them of your love and of your care? May our words of kindness encourage them to keep going and to keep their eyes on you, Jesus. Thank you, Lord, and it's in your name that we pray. Amen. Thanks for listening today. My name is Wes Ward, and today's encouragement was provided by Our Daily Bread Ministries.