From The Book of Job 7:17 -21, NRSV translation of the Bible
What are human beings, that you make so much of them,
that you set your mind on them,
visit them every morning, test them every moment?
Will you not look away from me for a while,
let me alone until I swallow my spittle?
If I sin, what do I do to you, you watcher of humanity?
Why have you made me your target?
Why have I become a burden to you?
Why do you not pardon my transgression and take away my iniquity?
For now I shall lie in the earth; you will seek me, but I shall not be.
1 comment:
Job is a biblical character who fearlessly explores all his feelings towards God, and expresses them in prayers so audacious that they often don’t sound to us like prayer. In this passage he feels so tormented and oppressed by God’s watching eye that he hopes to escape God in death. He provides a model of someone who is not afraid to express all of himself in prayer and to come face to face with the most frightening and mysterious aspects of both himself and God. In doing so, he is transformed.
God, I have many feelings about the pain and injustice of our world that I cannot reconcile with my ideas of who you are. Help me to turn towards you with my struggles, even when I am angry at you, even when I find it hard to believe in you because I do not feel your presence in what I see in the world.
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