In today’s first reading, Job 19: 21-27, Job says to his
friends, his harassers: “Pity me, pity me, O you my friends, for the hand of
God has struck me! Why do you hound me as though you were divine, and
insatiably prey upon me?”
Those, I believe, could be the words of family members,
children, adolescents, young adults, the elderly who are repeatedly abused verbally,
emotionally, psychologically; those who can do nothing right to please an angry
boss, an angry spouse, an angry parent, any angry friend, an angry coworker, an
angry employer/employee. Those words
could be put on the lips of victims of human trafficking, slave labor, drug
trafficking, angry jailers or guards of prisoners and so on. Victims could be saying: “Why do you hound me
as though you were divine, and insatiably prey upon me?”
My heart aches when I think of those scenarios. However, the Word of God also pierces my
heart to the core; God’s Word is also about me and it is to me that I need to
apply Job’s challenge. Yes, I need to ask myself whether I play God, “hound…[another]
as though…[I] were divine, and insatiably prey upon…[others]? Do I spend a
horribly large amount of time complaining about others, about the president,
the vice president, congress men and women, the Church, whoever and whatever,
instead of focusing on doing good in the small part of the world in which I
physically live—my family, my religious community, my workplace, my civic
community—making the world in which I live a better place. Or am I too busy
being the world’s critic? If so, then, I do not have to change, since I believe
everyone else is bad, disgusting, and doing things poorly.
Is it time for me to begin living my life for the
better, for the good of those around me, bringing them the gift of the Spirit’s
power within me to love, to forgive, to
radiate the power of God at work in me instead of trying to change others?
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