Job 11:13-14

13 If thou prepare [kuwn] thine heart [leb], and stretch [paras] out thine hands [kaph] toward him;

14 If iniquity ['aven] be in thine hand [yad], put it far away [rachaq], and let not wickedness [`evel] dwell [shakan] in thy tabernacles ['ohel]. KJV-Interlinear

13 'If you would direct your heart right, And spread out your hand to Him; 14 If iniquity is in your hand, put it far away, And do not let wickedness dwell in your tents. NASB

Despite his criticism of Job, Zophar has his good intentions. If Job were to change his ways, then his life would get better. That is in short, a principle of truth, when ones life is directed in accordance with Gods plan for your life.

As far as Job's life is concerned, we know that Job had been directing his life, his spiritual life, in the way in which God wanted him to. If he were not, then Job would not have been able to cope with this adversity. He wouldn't have had the inner resources to deal with his hardship and losses.

Zophar does not see that side of Jobs life. He is still of the mind that Job is somehow at fault and thus this suffering is his punishment.

Even though Zophar's lesson here is misapplied toward Job, his lesson does have merit in truth.

Often times when we begin our life, perhaps in our teen years or our twenties, we develop plans for our future. We have an idea as to what we want in our life, and how we want our life to turn out. We hustle and plan and sometimes we become meticulous, sometimes too meticulous, and that sets us up for disappointment and frustration later in life.

If you wish to be successful in life, then you will one day, come face to face with the decision of putting all of your own plans aside and behind you, and turn to the plan, which God has prepared for you. That decision can be a difficult one, and usually takes a person many years before the realities of life finally take their toll and the decision is forced.

Zophar begins with a sequence of changes, which must occur before life gets better.

A persons life has to be redirected. We all follow our own beliefs and desires in life, and there is nothing wrong with that, except when we ignore God or the spiritual side of our life, then failure is certain.

Our life has two sides, the temporal side and the spiritual side. The spiritual side is the greater of the two, because it affects the eternal, while the temporal side, impacts only the temporary life we have in this world.

In order to redirect your life, you have to begin by recognizing God, and then pursue His wisdom, or the learning of it, through a disciplined pattern of daily study of Bible doctrine.

Second, as Zophar states here, you need to begin a dialog with God. Your side is prayer, and the daily function of your life, and Gods side is of course the written word.

Then, third, in everyone's life, sin resides. That has to be driven out. It has to be driven out of your tent. Your tent is your place of residence. Your tent is your daily life. Your tent is your inner soul. Your tent is the entire function of your life, your thinking, your decisions, and your actions.

You cannot have a relationship, and certainly not a genuine one, when you hold on to little sins. You cannot compromise your life in any way. Neither in your soul, in your home, or in your relations with people in general.

Put sin out of your life, and by the way when we mention sin here, or iniquity, we are referring to the entire range of production of the sin nature, which includes not only sins in the usually sense, but also human righteousnesses. People who mean well can be just as evil as criminals, when they apply their good deeds outside of Gods sphere of fellowship.

To put iniquity out of your life, is the confession function. This is how you recover you fellowship status and thus restore yourself into the spiritual sphere in which your spiritual life functions.

Zophar knows how all of this works, and he has the correct order and understanding of how the spiritual life works. Jobs situation is quite possibly a totally new situation, which Zophar and the other two friends have never encountered before.

But none the less, every person, sooner or later in their life, will come face to face with their greatest decision in life. And that is to put behind them, their own perfect plans, whatever those plans may be, and turn their life over to God.

This doesn't mean that you stop being who and what you are, necessarily, unless of course you are some form of scum-bag, but what you need to do is incorporate God and spiritual growth into your life, and then perhaps what you are attempting to do, will be taken over or even redirected by God, to what He knows, will be better and more fulfilling for your life.

Now is the time to post a prayer.