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It is easy to advise others, but not always so easy to take our own advice.

Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered: "If one ventures a word with you, will you be offended? But who can keep from speaking? See, you have instructed many; you have strengthened the weak hands. Your words have supported those who were stumbling, and you have made firm the feeble knees. But now it has come to you, and you are impatient; it touches you, and you are dismayed. Is not your fear of God your confidence, and the integrity of your ways your hope? - Job 4:1-6

I get the impression that Job didn't see himself the way he saw others. 

Perhaps none of us do.  We like to think we are wiser, more in touch, maybe even better.

I just completed three days of mentor training for the EfM program.  It was formation training, which is more focused and more advanced than the foundation training we begin with.

But there is a requirement to repeat foundation training after taking formation.  We have to take two more foundation classes before we can attend another formation class.

The thought behind that is simple.  No matter how good we get, we can still learn something new, something fresh.

When the training is good, and it often is, even the trainers get something out of it.  We all learn together.

But Job's problem is he doesn't think he belongs in the situation he is in.  He did nothing wrong.  He didn't choose the wrong path.  He was a good man.

So, what could be creeping in here is self-righteousness.  He sees himself differently, if not better than those he used to comfort.

Maybe that is the lesson we need to take away from this story.  If bad times can fall on good people as well as bad, who are we to judge?

How can we be so sure the other guy deserved what he got?

We tend to define each other by the bad things we do or are accused of.  He's a cheat.  She's a liar.  They are not trustworthy.

Can we be so confident?  What if someone did that to us?

What could they dredge up from our lives and pin on us now?

Maybe we need to be a bit more understanding and compassionate with each other.  Or we might have a friend hold us a mirror to our faces and ask, "If one ventures a word with you, will you be offended?"

More to come...