A Devotion for the Daunting Days

There’s a certain expectation that I have these days. Maybe you share it with me. When I get in the car and turn on the radio, or flip on the TV, or scroll through websites, or social media, or catch a snippet of conversation in the coffee shop: I expect to feel dread.

I expect to hear that another injustice has occurred, violence has been committed, people have suffered, and (this week very literally), that another storm looms.

My expectation of dread has caused me to have pre-dread. Before I even open the browser or look at the screen, I anticipate the heaviness. I stiffen my body for another blow. And the anticipation becomes almost worse that the actual dread. My fear has its own fear – a sneaky, scheming early arrival that can leave me either consumed by anger and grief, or perhaps worse, numb to the world.

The dread seems inevitable. It seems persistent and pervasive, both a knee jerk response and a chronic diagnosis. How else can we, as people of faith, respond to the darkness that is all around us? When and how does the dread finally end?

It is fitting that one of this week’s lectionary readings comes from the book of Job. Job, the long-suffering main character finds himself stricken by a host of calamities. (For a funny, very short colloquial summary of Job, visit here: https://wolfmueller.co/jobsummary/).

Job, a formerly wealth man, upright in his relationship with God, loses his children, his livestock, and for a time, his will to live. His wife is no help, and his friends advise him that he must somehow be responsible for this suffering.

In Chapter 22, Job’s friend (?) Eliphaz, confronts Job for the second time and insists that Job’s suffering must come from some unrepented sin.

Then we read Job’s response in Chapter 23:

Then Job answered:
‘Today also my complaint is bitter;
his hand is heavy despite my groaning.
O that I knew where I might find him,
that I might come even to his dwelling!
I would lay my case before him,
and fill my mouth with arguments.
I would learn what he would answer me,
and understand what he would say to me.
Would he contend with me in the greatness of his power?
No; but he would give heed to me.
There an upright person could reason with him,
and I should be acquitted for ever by my judge.

‘If I go forward, he is not there;
or backward, I cannot perceive him;
on the left he hides, and I cannot behold him;
I turn to the right, but I cannot see him.
God has made my heart faint;
the Almighty has terrified me;
If only I could vanish in darkness,
and thick darkness would cover my face!

Job finds no hope in the courts of man, no assurance in the words of his advisers. And yet, Job keeps hope. Even though Job cannot see or feel God’s nearness, God is mindful of Job.

The hope that Job maintains is an assurance in God, even when God’s justice is intangible and God’s presence is a mystery. Hope in this sense in not just a belief or an expectation. Hope is something that we live for and long for, something we shape our lives upon - not just for ourselves, but for others as well. Job hopes for justice and hopes for God, even when he cannot completely see God and justice in his current state.

For much of the book of Job, God is seemingly silent. Job’s cries of pain seem to resound in an empty sky, never landing, never finding a compassionate hearer. His response has cycled through gracious submission, to confession, through complaint and rebuke.

God’s response comes, finally, in gathering storm. Thundering through a whirlwind, God speaks. God explains to Job that to us as mere mortal humans, sometimes there are no words - no rationalizations or easy answers - that can make sense of the unhappiness we endure.

The hope that Job receives, and that we can find comfort in lies in the fact that God shows up. God takes the time, the intention to speak to Job. God’s justice does not come in the way Job expects it. But God’s justice is on display in God’s presence: the God who bends low to speak to Job, the God who puts on flesh to dwell with us in Christ Jesus, the God who endures suffering and death – this is God’s justice made manifest.

The book of Job never fully answers the question of why we suffer, why terrible acts occur, and why evil exists.

What Job’s story does, however, is remind us that we are not alone in our suffering. Our pain is not unseen or unheard by God.

I may not know what dread you may be facing this day. I do know that many of us see suffering before us on a daily basis, whether in places of pain in our personal life, or in the stories of those we serve and work alongside.

What I can tell you is that you do not have to carry this dread or grief or pain alone. As you go about your daily work, you do not work in vain for a distant God. We serve a God who bends low to hear our cries, who carries our dread and fear and does not turn away.

Day by day, minute by minute, I am working on releasing my fear and dread about the world to God. In doing so, I am not saying it is not real; rather, I am not letting it be the main story I tell myself.

We are loved, evil does not win, and God is present. That is a news story I can believe in.

In hope,

Chaplain Amy

P.S. If you’ll allow me a moment for a pastoral note:

If in these past few weeks, the pervasiveness of sexual assault and abuse coverage in the news has affected you, caused you to relive any past trauma, or experience feelings of depression or anxiety, you are not alone. I am here if you need to talk or grieve or pray. Your pain is not forgotten, it is not trivial. Please reach out, to me, to a trusted pastor, counselor, family member or friend. Please do not suffer alone. You are believed and deeply loved.