Job - A Story of Unlikely JoySample

Although I loathe giving that lying lizard, Satan, any more ink in this Bible study, he is the merchant who compiled, marketed, and sold the shame that Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar are dumping on Job by the wheelbarrow load. 

Frankly, I think Satan is always the supplier of shame. He doesn’t have the ability to create like God does, and shame is not a created substance. It is instead the amalgamation of lies, wounds, offenses, abuse, and fear that make up the detritus of our lives, which that dirty dragon gathers gleefully while slithering—hidden and unbidden—through the dark alleys of our personal history. Then he boils all those ugly memories and painful chapters of our stories into a toxic brew that we often swallow because it smells vaguely familiar. 

What recycled lie or wound from your past has Satan used most often in an attempt to ensnare you in shame? What truth has God given you to combat that lie? What keeps you from consistently applying that truth? 

Read 1 Corinthians 6:1-8. What difference do you see between the accountability that Paul calls the church to in this passage and being bound by Satan-authored shame?

Soon after I brought Missy home from Haiti I taught her the saying, “Harper girls do trauma not drama.” I explained that if her heart or her body were hurt then she should cry as loud and as long as she needed to and I would take care of her. But I told her, if she cried and carried on about something that wasn’t serious or wounding—such as wanting to play another game on the iPad® or wanting a Fruit Roll-Up™ even though she hadn’t eaten her dinner yet—that was called drama. Between the amped up sensation of reality television, the shrieking discord of current political affairs, and the twenty-four/ seven barrage of social media, I think our culture is so saturated with drama that too often real trauma goes unnoticed and untended. We rush to triage emotional hangnails but completely ignore people around us who are bleeding out.

Poor Job was essentially lying with his chest open on the operating table, and his friends were too busy proclaiming theatrical, spiritually-varnished platitudes to even hand him a roll of gauze.

To read more of Job, A Story of Unlikely Joy, visit LifeWay.com/Job. There you'll also find teaching videos and other resources from Lisa Harper.