Hit Me Again
When someone is determined to make their point, they will keep coming at you until you give in.
One day the heavenly beings came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them to present himself before the Lord. The Lord said to Satan, "Where have you come from?" Satan answered the Lord, "From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it." The Lord said to Satan, "Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away from evil. He still persists in his integrity, although you incited me against him, to destroy him for no reason." Then Satan answered the Lord, "Skin for skin! All that people have they will give to save their lives. But stretch out your hand now and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse you to your face." The Lord said to Satan, "Very well, he is in your power; only spare his life." So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord, and inflicted loathsome sores on Job from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. Job took a potsherd with which to scrape himself, and sat among the ashes. Then his wife said to him, "Do you still persist in your integrity? Curse God, and die." But he said to her, "You speak as any foolish woman would speak. Shall we receive the good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?" In all this Job did not sin with his lips. Now when Job's three friends heard of all these troubles that had come upon him, each of them set out from his home-- Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. They met together to go and console and comfort him. When they saw him from a distance, they did not recognize him, and they raised their voices and wept aloud; they tore their robes and threw dust in the air upon their heads. They sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great. - Job 2:1-13
I wonder if Job's wife was influenced by Satan.
There must be a reason Satan didn't kill her. God gave no restriction on her, so maybe she is being used by Satan to get Job to curse God.
What keeps Job from doing that is his belief in God's grace. There will be a way, he thinks, for him to understand all of this, and then he will be able to improve his lot.
His friends, on the other hand, have no idea how to help him.
They see a broken man, and they weep.
They sit with him for seven days, as they would if he had died. To them, he is beyond hope.
But Job does not give in.
When someone wants to hurt us, our resistance may only cause them to be more hurtful. That is the price we pay for our faith and trust in God.
What we learn from Job is not to give up.
More to come...