The Mirror of the Word and other works by C.E. White can be purchased on her website, cewhitebooks.com or on Amazon.

“To me they listened and waited, and they kept silent for my advice . . .  And now I have become their taunt, and I have become a byword to them. They loathe me and stand aloof from me.”

—Job 29:21 & Job 30:9–10

The world loves a success story. They want advice about how to get there too, and they want to be associated with that success. They hang on every word to find out how to accomplish their own goals.

But what happens when that success story collapses?

The world’s first reaction is suspicion. Like Job’s friends, most people will think, “They must’ve done something wrong. Maybe they deserve this loss.”

They start thinking that person must not be as smart or as great as they thought; they stop flattering and begin to shun.

We like to believe that success is always earned and failure is always deserved, but the Bible shows us over and over that this isn’t true.

“He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Matthew 5:45).

This world is broken. Bad things will happen in life no matter how diligently we work, how devoted we are to serving God, or how intelligent and talented we are. Sometimes bad things actually happen because of those things, as we can see with Job.

May we look upon those whose worlds are collapsing and have compassion for them rather than suspicion. May we not distance ourselves from them in their time of need. May we remember that Job was blameless before God; he was not being punished.

And may we remember the same for ourselves when our hard–won successes fall away through no fault of our own.

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