The Lord wants us to get it: get things right, get past our problems, and then get on with living life to the full.
We haven’t heard about Job’s three friends for some time, but evidently they stayed around to hear Elihu, and then the Lord Himself, speak. “And so it was, after the Lord had spoken these words to Job, that the Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite, ‘My wrath is aroused against you and your two friends, for you have not spoken of Me what is right, as My servant Job has’” (Job 42:7). Ah, so the Lord was there even before showing up in the whirlwind! We all know it, but have to remind ourselves regularly that the Lord not only hears everything we say but what we think as well! “You understand my thought afar off” (Ps 139:2). As a preview for the day when, for every idle word, we “will give account…in the day of judgment” (Mt 12:36), the Lord calls Job’s three friends to understand the cost of their words, especially when they mischaracterized God—His attributes, His attitude, and His actions. What should they do? “Take for yourselves seven bulls and seven rams, go to My servant Job, and offer up for yourselves a burnt offering; and My servant Job shall pray for you. For I will accept him, lest I deal with you according to your folly; because you have not spoken of Me what is right, as My servant Job has” (Job 42:8). So now Job’s interlocutors must seek Job’s intercession. The ones who pulled him down must ask him to lift them up. God is asking Job to do what His Son would some day ask all of us to do: “love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you” (Mt 5:44). God was being gracious with Job, His “servant,” about what he said. Now Job has an opportunity to show the same grace to his “friends” about their hurtful words. Grace upon grace.