Year 5, Day 105: Job 11

Theological Commentary: Click Here

http://enteeremo.blogspot.com/2012/04/year-2-day-105-job-11.html

Discipleship Focus: Character

• Character: Having the interior life that is necessary to support the work that God sets before a person.  It is hearing from God and obeying.  It is doing the right thing when nobody is looking.

I’ve spoken much over the past few days about the need to listen.  I think that listening involves patience as well.  One cannot listen unless one is patient.  One cannot listen unless one is willing to let the other person speak before speaking yourself.

Once more in Job 11 we see a friend of Job seem to jump to the wrong conclusion that Job is in this predicament because of some horrid and tragic sin.  Much of Zophar’s advice is great, but on this point he makes the common mistake that those who came before him have made.  These friends of Job are not listening.  While they certainly have access to wisdom, when it comes to listening they don’t have the character within themselves to put aside their own thoughts for a moment.

This has caused me to wonder about how much of having the character of God is being willing to listen to Him?  After all, can we really obey unless we’ve taken time to hear?  Can we truly do the right thing if we haven’t taken the time to listen to God regarding what the right thing is?

I think that listening has much to do with character.  To listen means to be willing to put someone else first.  To listen means to be willing to accept something from another person.  To listen means to acknowledge that the world doesn’t revolve around me.  I believe all of these things are tied to the idea of character.  Having character means having the ability to put aside my desires and wishes and do what is right regardless of what I may really desire to do.  In other words, character is listening to God and listening to the needs of the world around me and trying to follow God into meeting those needs.

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