31. Successful Lies

He shook a finger straight at the pocked face across from him and said, “Look at you, the big man! You’re bankrupt. You lost your family. You’re covered with scabby pus. You’re a mess! And why? Everyone knows that God works according to one simple rule—do right things, receive good; do wrong things, receive bad. Yet you keep moaning that it’s not fair. Give it up already! It’s plain to everyone but you. If you mess up, you pay the price.” He paused, overwhelmed again by his friend’s grief. “Look,” he said softly, “confess whatever it is you did, and God will forgive you. You don’t have to stay like this, Job.”

A few hundred years later, weary travelers staggered into the center of camp, surrounded by guards. “Where you boys from?” the leader asked them.

“A long way from here,” they said with exhausted resignation.

“Oh, yeah, how do we know that?” the leader quizzed.

The tiny band looked at each other with disbelief. “Well, ah, look at our stuff. It’s all worn out. Our coats are thin, and our shoes full of holes. They were new when we started this trip.”

Another added, “Here, look at what’s left of our food. It’s moldy now but was fresh when we left.”

Then the elder traveler spoke up, “We’re not trying to cause trouble, sir. But we’ve spent a long time getting here just so we could talk to you. We’re from a place far away you’ve probably never heard of. It’s called Gibeon.”

Joshua scratched his beard, thought for moment, and then said, “Ok, the guard here will see that you get some water and food. We’ll talk some more when you’ve rested a bit.”

Job’s friends spoke correctly about God punishing sin. And Joshua and his advisors also correctly understood that bread needs time to mold and shoes need miles to wear through. They looked for and reached logical conclusions from indisputable facts. Unfortunately, they forgot that distorted truth supports successful lies. Real truth, on the other hand, comes not by looking at facts alone, but by touching the Truth Himself.