Bury those forks.

Job’s friends are the worst.

They’re slowly sticking a fork into his side in an attempt to “comfort” him.

Here’s a man who’s lost everything. His children, his home, his health. Even his wife tells him to curse God and die.

I relate to Job. But I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t relate to his friends.

Remember my sin, vanity?

Well, meet my other sin, envy.

I am not good at not being jealous.

I will say I am A LOT better at it than I used to be. But there are still those dark spots in my heart that try to eat it from the inside out.

God has shown me with my skin issues that I’m not less than when I don’t look like perfection. And he’s showing me now that where I am at this moment in my life doesn’t define who I am either.

It’s not about other people and what they’ve accomplished. Because, like the book of Job points out, sometimes God leaves people to their own devices and lets them succeed at their own hands.

And that thought, my friends, is terrifying.

Think about it: God has left them utterly alone to amass wealth and titles and all sorts of goodies and there they go patting themselves on their backs none the wiser.

They’ve never given God the opportunity to circle their sin and bring their attention to it. They’ve never attempted to redefine who they are in Christ and forget the ways of this world.

What do you think will happen to them when they die?

A brand new Mercedes is nice, man, but it ain’t gonna save your soul.

However, not everyone who is blessed with wealth is walking this path. Think of Joseph of Aramathea. He gave his own tomb to Jesus.

Now there’s a man who truly got it.

So the point is this: the health of your heart (not your bank account) totally correlates to your journey to heaven.

If there’s darkness there, sin that’s eating it away, then there’s no room to grow in Jesus.

This is something I have to be mindful of from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to sleep. I am not my circumstances or my accomplishments or the lack thereof.

I am the heart I offer to Christ.

And if it’s dark, if it’s intent on my own success at the expense of everything else, then it’s not the gift I want to offer.

“Though He slay me, yet will I hope in him…” (Job 13:15)