Job 19:14
My relatives and intimate friends no longer visit,
The guests in my house have forsaken me.
When I first read this verse, I wondered what guests were in his house that had forsaken him. We have had a variety of guests since we first moved in, but our culture has moved away from people staying at the houses of others, and we have hotels and motels everywhere to extract dollars from our pockets. As time runs short on the year, I had hoped to go visit my relatives, and one offered for me to stay in their house. I took them up on it because that is how I grew up. I’m more likely to offend the rest of them than for anyone being glad I stayed somewhere else.
‘Relatives’ was also ‘kinsfolk’ and ‘dear ones’. ‘No longer visit’ was also ‘no longer know’, ‘are gone’, ‘withdrew’, and ‘have failed me’.
‘Guests’ was ‘friends’, ‘household’, and ‘close friends’. ‘Forsake’ was once ‘neglect’ and ‘forget’ the other seven times. Forget just seemed wrong. Looking back, ‘no longer visit’ may need to change to ‘have failed me’.
What do I want to do is a question I ask all the time. My audience is almost always only God, and it’s a game I play where I try to remind myself that I should not want anything. I have an extra business opportunity in front of me that I really want no part of. I am only considering it because that is what God seems to be asking me to ask Him about. I know it is an opportunity for me to mature, but I am really not sure what the next step will be.
Many, many years ago, we were talking about doing some upgrades to our house. We ended up learning that we had not really shared our desire to have a pool with each other. I think the only upgrade we did that year was the pool, but looking back it reminds me that sometimes our path is not even a consideration before we turn to God. Back when we first had a little cash, we thought about getting a rental house. We ended up buying the family business and putting money away for the girls’ college costs.
For many years, I wanted to get another 911 that was an automatic, so I could drive it in traffic when I did not want to drive mine with its manual transmission. It was one of those pipe dream, valueless wants that get people in trouble. The good thing was that I never had that much spare cash laying around. The even better thing is that I overcame that want before I had the means. And now with prices so high, it doesn’t matter anymore and God has finally helped me release that want.
My background sets my desire to have people visit and have guests. Our culture pushes against this. Our culture cannot handle being offended. My background apparently makes my behavior offensive to others. I know that if my choice is whether to offend someone or follow God, then I want to follow God. It is not a matter of wanting to offend anyone so much as people are offended by who I am. Job felt this. It allowed him to mature. Hopefully, I am doing so as well.
I am changing my rendition to this:
My relatives and intimate friends have failed me,
The guests in my house have forsaken me.
Written 11/3/25, Posted 1/7/26, Job 414/~1070