Building on the Foundation

  A man once told me, “Job died thousands of years ago, but his friends are alive and well to this day.” God recognized Job as the most righteous man on earth, “a blameless and upright man” who feared God and shunned evil (Job 1:8; 2:3). But He wanted to see what this man was really made of, so He allowed Satan to put Job through a wringer of adversity. In the midst of his affliction, Job’s three friends showed up to comfort him (Job 2:11). Rather than comforting him, however, they added to his affliction. Job must have sinned some terrible sin, they said, or else he wouldn’t be suffering. Job knew of no evil he’d done, nor could his friends tell him what his sin was , but they assured him he was an evil man who deserved all his suffering. They picked Job’s life apart, trying to find something, anything, that he might’ve done to deserve God’s punishment. Have you ever had friends like this? Known people like this? We probably all know nitpickers who live to tear others down. They s...

  Some people, judging from their life choices, apparently enjoy being miserable, because they keep making the same choices that lead to misery. If you're one of these folks who aspires to be miserable, I’ve put together a how-to guide so that you can easily achieve maximum misery. This post will probably anger a few folks, because most of us, if not all of us, have made some of these choices. Make no mistake, though; I, too, have made plenty of these very choices over the years. Now, this post is just for fun, and it’s often exaggerated for effect. But hopefully it will make us all think about our life choices and make better ones. So let’s get started. Here’s your handy, ten-point guide on how to be miserable! 1. Disobey God This one is the most important of all. God gave us instructions for our own good (Deut. 10:13), so obviously you must ignore those in order to be truly miserable. If you find very plain instructions in God’s Word, ignore them. Tell yourself they don’t apply i...