Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“After this Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth. Job said:
‘Let the day perish on which I was born,
and the night that said,
“A man-child is conceived.””
NL Daily Devotion for Tuesday, June 9, 2020
by Daniel D. Maurer, Clergy Stuff
Despair is never a fun emotion to experience. We’ve all felt it at one time or another. Job felt it too. One of the great things about the Holy Bible is that it never pulls any punches in describing what’s going on with people. The Old Testament and the Hebrew Bible specifically do a nice job at laying at what it really means to be human.
That includes everything human beings experience. Where the Song of Songs deals with the erotic and romantic love, Job deals with the lowest moments of a person’s life. One such chapter in Job looks at despair.
In this time of pandemics, loss of work, social distancing and uncertainty, we can relate with Job’s anguish.
“For my sighing comes like my bread,
and my groanings are poured out like water.”
Job wishes that he’d never even been born. And it’s easy to see that he didn’t sugarcoat what he was feeling. Yet, despite his despair, he seems to persist. And that’s hopeful. It means that he’s willing to sit in his pain, even though he doesn’t want to. We might learn from that example and understand the ancient wisdom of this, too, shall pass.
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