Bildad answered Job – How long will you hunt for words? Consider, then we’ll speak. Are we stupid like cattle in your sight? Shall the earth be forsaken for you? The light of the wicked is put out, his steps are shortened, and his schemes throw him down. He’s cast into a a trap by his own feet. Terrors fight him on every side. His strength is famished, and calamity is ready for his stumbling. It consumes the parts of his skin. Nothing of his own is in his tent, and sulfur is scattered all over his habitation. His roots dry up and branches wither. No one remembers him. He is thrust into darkness and driven out of the world. The dwellings like this of the unrighteous, is the place of him who doesn’t knows God.
God, help us to not assume that our friends who suffer do not know God. Enable us to not assume that they look for words in vain. Help us to not take offense when we are corrected and then turn and make false accusations. God, help us to not pursue our selfishness in the midst of our friends’ suffering. Help us to look to You. God, when we suffer help us to have a deaf ear to unhelpful counselors. Help us to not despair in the face of accusations that we don’t love You, and that that’s the reason why we suffer. Use our suffering to refine our faith, and show Your strength in the midst of our weakness.