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Day 141, or May 21. It's easy for you to say. Our thoughts are from Job 16, verse 3. Will

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your long-winded speeches never end? What ails you that you keep on arguing?

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Another big picture surrounding this verse. The debate goes on and on. Job tells his friends

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that he could say what they are all saying if their situations were reversed. But he

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would like to think he would be more helpful than they are. Their words are very accurate,

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but they miss the point and are very unhelpful. He tells his friends that they are very poor

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comforters in which there is no comfort at all. He wonders if God is using him as an

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example to deter others. He questions whether God may have made him a byword that others

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may spit at and scornfully despise—an example of what happens to a man when he sins against

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God. At least this makes a sort of sense, and partially answers his questions of why

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things are so bad. Job does all he can to show his sorrow before God, by wearing sackcloth

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and ashes, but all it does is make his life even more of a misery without helping him.

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He is still puzzled as to why his life has taken such a disastrous turn, and no one seems

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able to help.

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And now to today's action step. I used to have a poster on my study wall, which I am

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sure Job would have used if posters had been available in 2000 B.C. It said, When all is

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said and done, there's a lot more said than done. I think all business meetings should

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have this to open and close their sessions. Mind you, personal conversations are the same,

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aren't they? How much easier it is to give advice rather than actually doing something!

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How clear a football fan can seem to have grasped the situation until someone gives

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him the ball to demonstrate it! How I long for someone to respond to my request for help

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by telling me that they will come round to my house to see me and show me how it's done.

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Next time you are about to give advice, consider taking action instead.