Tag: understanding

Suffering That Is Beyond Understanding (Job 2:11-3:26)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment

When Job’s three friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite, heard about all the troubles that had come upon him, they set out from their homes and met together by agreement to go and sympathize with him and comfort him. 

When they saw him from a distance, they could hardly recognize him; they began to weep aloud, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads. Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was.

After this, Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth. He said:

“May the day of my birth perish,
    and the night that said, ‘A boy is conceived!’
That day—may it turn to darkness;
    may God above not care about it;
    may no light shine on it.
May gloom and utter darkness claim it once more;
    may a cloud settle over it;
    may blackness overwhelm it.
That night—may thick darkness seize it;
    may it not be included among the days of the year
    nor be entered in any of the months.
May that night be barren;
    may no shout of joy be heard in it.
May those who curse days curse that day,
    those who are ready to rouse Leviathan.
May its morning stars become dark;
    may it wait for daylight in vain
    and not see the first rays of dawn,
for it did not shut the doors of the womb on me
    to hide trouble from my eyes.

“Why did I not perish at birth,
    and die as I came from the womb?
Why were there knees to receive me
    and breasts that I might be nursed?
For now I would be lying down in peace;
    I would be asleep and at rest
with kings and rulers of the earth,
    who built for themselves places now lying in ruins,
with princes who had gold,
    who filled their houses with silver.
Or why was I not hidden away in the ground like a stillborn child,
    like an infant who never saw the light of day?
There the wicked cease from turmoil,
    and there the weary are at rest.
Captives also enjoy their ease;
    they no longer hear the slave driver’s shout.
The small and the great are there,
    and the slaves are freed from their owners.

“Why is light given to those in misery,
    and life to the bitter of soul,
to those who long for death that does not come,
    who search for it more than for hidden treasure,
who are filled with gladness
    and rejoice when they reach the grave?
Why is life given to a man
    whose way is hidden,
    whom God has hedged in?
For sighing has become my daily food;
    my groans pour out like water.
What I feared has come upon me;
    what I dreaded has happened to me.
I have no peace, no quietness;
    I have no rest, but only turmoil.” (New International Version)

Job and His Friends, by Ilya Repin, 1869

By anyone’s definition of trouble, the biblical character of Job was in a world of it. Through a series of terrible calamities in which he lost all his children and his earthly possessions, Job was sitting in misery with painful sores on his body from head to toe.

We as readers of Job’s story, have been informed of the behind the scenes discussion between God and Satan. Out of that conversation, Satan was allowed to do anything to Job except outright kill him. (Job 1:1-12)

Job and his “friends,” however, were not privy to any of that insider information. All they knew was the bald reality concerning Job’s loss of family, property, and health. When the friends heard of the tragedies, they came to visit him. And upon seeing Job, they barely recognized him, devastated from the harsh circumstances of his experiences.

What would you do if you were Job? I’ve seen people give up on life altogether, having gone through a lot less than Job. What would you do if you were the friends? I’ve known people that didn’t even have their friends show up, at all, when they went through extreme difficulties.

Sometimes I feel as if I’m in the business of being a chaplain to the Job’s of this world. I consider myself a creative guy, but the experiences and stories from some of the patients I’ve seen, I don’t think I could ever have imagined. There are hardships some folks have lived through that have no words. “Trauma” is an understatement for them.

That was the spiritual and emotional territory for Job. Yet, he held fast to his commitment toward God. But that didn’t mean Job was going to keep quiet and be passive before God or anyone else.

Job was in such a holistic state of misery that he wished he were never born. Both body and soul were hurting beyond hurt.

It is laughable to me to consider that Job would have ever said anything like, “Well, there are others who have it worse than me!” “I could be more thankful for what I have!” “My wife is alive. I need to be strong for her.” And yet, people in awful situations tell themselves things like this every day.

Then, there are the friends. Within the biblical Book of Job, they are actually at their best in the beginning of the story. That is, they are quiet and don’t say a thing. Later, when they open their mouths, we get them saying shortsighted and ignorant things.

In our quest to make sense of unwanted and unasked for situations, we try to understand what is going on. But not everything is going to make sense. There is a chunk of life that will forever be nonsense to us. And it isn’t our task in this life to figure everything out – namely because there are some things that are well beyond our ever figuring out.

In saying that, it doesn’t mean that I am a nihilist. If you perhaps think that, then maybe you have an inordinate need to know all things and how they work.

Instead, I am pointing out something that may seem simple, in the midst of people’s lives that are incredibly complex with all sorts of strange permutations to them:

  1. If you have been through something life-changing, you need to tell your story to someone. To connect with another person who cares about what you are going through is vital. You cannot live without it.
  2. If your friend has been through something life-changing, you need to listen to their story, without immediate comment or thinking about how to respond. Your caring affect and demeanor is what just may save their life.

This is actually difficult work. Stories can be hard, because life can be hard. Listening is hard, because it hurts to hear another’s pain.

But it is more necessary than you could ever imagine.

As Jesus cried out on the cross, I cry out to you in pain, O God my Creator. Do not forsake me. Grant me relief from this suffering and preserve me in peace; through Jesus Christ my Savior, in the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Nothing Makes Sense (Ecclesiastes 1:1-18)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
Statue of “The Thinker,” by Auguste Rodin, 1880. Photo by Robert Reynolds.

When the son of David was king in Jerusalem, he was known to be very wise, and he said:

Nothing makes sense!
Everything is nonsense.
    I have seen it all—
    nothing makes sense!
What is there to show
for all of our hard work
    here on this earth?
People come, and people go,
but still the world
    never changes.

The sun comes up,
    the sun goes down;
it hurries right back
    to where it started from.
The wind blows south,
    the wind blows north;
round and round it blows
    over and over again.
All rivers empty into the sea,
    but it never spills over;
one by one the rivers return
    to their source.

All of life is far more boring
    than words could ever say.
Our eyes and our ears
are never satisfied
    with what we see and hear.
Everything that happens
    has happened before;
nothing is new,
    nothing under the sun.
Someone might say,
    “Here is something new!”
But it happened before,
    long before we were born.
No one who lived in the past
    is remembered anymore,
and everyone yet to be born
    will be forgotten too.

I said these things when I lived in Jerusalem as king of Israel. With all my wisdom I tried to understand everything that happens here on earth. And God has made this so hard for us humans to do. I have seen it all, and everything is just as senseless as chasing the wind.

If something is crooked,
    it can’t be made straight;
if something isn’t there,
    it can’t be counted.

I said to myself, “You are by far the wisest person who has ever lived in Jerusalem. You are eager to learn, and you have learned a lot.” Then I decided to find out all I could about wisdom and foolishness. Soon I realized that this too was as senseless as chasing the wind.

The more you know,
    the more you hurt;
the more you understand,
    the more you suffer. (Contemporary English Version)

There’s an awful lot of nonsense in this old world. Arguably, the wisest person who ever lived, King Solomon, said that everything is nonsense, and all things are meaningless.

That’s probably why the Book of Ecclesiastes isn’t at the top of most people’s reading list. Admittedly, in many ways, it’s a depressing read.

Yet, maybe we are being led to consider that it really isn’t our task or purpose to understand everything in this world. After all, if a wise guy like Solomon didn’t make heads nor tails of it all, why in tarnation would you or I try to do so?

This doesn’t mean we don’t understand anything; it just means that we don’t have the ultimate answers on the universe’s workings. And if we try to have perfect knowledge of all things, it will be a fool’s errand. That’s because only God has ultimate understanding and perfect knowledge of everything and everyone.

So then, what do we do? Glad you asked. We accept our limitations, and thereby, it is likely we will gain more understanding than any other way we try.

Meister Eckhart, a medieval Catholic monk, had some sage observations in this short poem:

What is the prayer

of a heart loosed

from all the things

that crowd our lives

and worry our minds

from day to day?

it is coming to that

place within us where

not knowing is the

mark of faith,

not wanting

the work of hope,

and not demanding

the gift of love.

Meister Eckhart talked of acceptance, and letting go of expectations. Learning to allow things to go as they will go, to be okay with not always having to have answers for everything, and refusing to control people and outcomes, is not only the path to acceptance, but is also the way of peace and less anxiety.

Likely, the best that we can do every day is to show up, pay attention, speak the truth in love, and don’t be married to the consequences.

If we can accept our limitations and weaknesses, and embrace the mysteries of life, then a whole world of discernment and wisdom can open to us within the narrow scope of our very mortal lives.

Indeed, we can find a sense of satisfaction and happiness in who we are, and what our place is in this very big world. Yet, this only comes with some significant struggle. Taking the easy path only results in cheap counterfeit contentment.

We will need to become comfortable with mystery and paradox, the knowledge that comes with not knowing, and upside-down theology. These are our keys to the secrets of life.

We must rid ourselves of the idea that Scripture is merely a life map that shows how and where to live. Holy Scripture may be a map, yet, it will point us in directions we may not want to go; and may even tell us to be in two places at once.

To try and make the Bible neat and tidy, with clear answers to modern day questions, is probably why such persons avoid the Book of Ecclesiastes as if it were the plague.

In reality, Ecclesiastes is a book that stands the orderly nature of life on its end. It is the scriptural place where playing by the rules and believing the right things won’t give you the good life you’re searching for.

Eventually, everyone encounters a dark night of the soul in which the death of a loved one, a failed relationship, or the loss of health turns our neatly ordered world upside-down to the point where we don’t recognize who we are, or what the world really is anymore.

These are times when our platitudes of simple faith are impotent to help us. Trust and belief are still important and vital, but they are no longer as understandable and intelligible as they once were.

It is imperative in these times that we doubt and question things; and even question God. A genuine robust faith is one that has been gained by plodding through the muck of anger, and even depression.

Authentic belief is neither cheap nor easy. It engages more than a few mental thoughts; it also goes to the heart and the gut, often with heart-rending emotions and gut-wrenching insights.

The Book of Ecclesiastes is a book for all of us. But it must not be read lightly nor flippantly. It’s contents need to be grappled with. Simply reading the last page of the book and making a faith declaration from that place will not only get you nowhere, it is also potentially damaging.

Only engage this material if you are brave enough, have some chutzpah within you, and are willing to reconsider and perhaps let go of all previous settled ideas about how the world is, or at least, how it should work.

So, if you want some quick answers to life’s meaning and purpose, Ecclesiastes is not the place to look. There are plenty of charlatans out there who would be happy to give you such information.

But if you are searching for something real and authentic, genuine and lasting, then be prepared for a tough, yet fruitful, slog through the “meaningless” meanderings of Ecclesiastes.

Only the courageous and the vulnerable should enter.

O God, I am very sorry that I have sinned against you and for all the wrongs I have done and the good I have not done. Forgive me, and grant me strength and wisdom to amend my life.

I offer you praise and thanksgiving, for creation and all the blessings of this life, for redemption, faith, and love; and for the means of grace and the hope of glory. Amen.

Wise Living Is Clean Living (Proverbs 15:1-17)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment

A gentle answer quiets anger, but a harsh one stirs it up.

When wise people speak, they make knowledge attractive, but stupid people spout nonsense.

The Lord sees what happens everywhere; he is watching us, whether we do good or evil.

Kind words bring life, but cruel words crush your spirit.

It is foolish to ignore what your parents taught you; it is wise to accept their correction.

Righteous people keep their wealth, but the wicked lose theirs when hard times come.

Knowledge is spread by people who are wise, not by fools.

The Lord is pleased when good people pray, but hates the sacrifices that the wicked bring him.

The Lord hates the ways of evil people, but loves those who do what is right.

If you do what is wrong, you will be severely punished; you will die if you do not let yourself be corrected.

Not even the world of the dead can keep the Lord from knowing what is there; how then can we hide our thoughts from God?

Conceited people do not like to be corrected; they never ask for advice from those who are wiser.

When people are happy, they smile, but when they are sad, they look depressed.

Intelligent people want to learn, but stupid people are satisfied with ignorance.

The life of the poor is a constant struggle, but happy people always enjoy life.

Better to be poor and fear the Lord than to be rich and in trouble.

Better to eat vegetables with people you love than to eat the finest meat where there is hate. (Good News Translation)

Here is today’s Proverbs lesson in my own colloquial words:

A calm and kind response sucks the anger out of the room, but hot-headed words set the place on hellfire.

A level-headed person gives helpful answers, but a know-it-all only keeps on babbling nonsense.

Just because you cannot see God, doesn’t mean that God cannot see you, both the good and the bad.

Kind words given to another person are life-giving, but unkind words catapulted at a person ends up crushing their spirit.

You can tell a fool by how their refusal to accept counsel from their parents, but a wise person freely receives parental instruction.

Wise folk understand they need to save for a rainy day, but fools spend everything they have, then wonder why they’re in dire straits.

Wisdom and common sense are akin to one another; foolishness and nonsense are two peas in a pod.

The Lord perks up when the righteous pray, but does a face palm when the wicked offer up anything.

The ways of evil people make the Lord nauseous, but the way of the righteous is delightful to God.

A stupid dog doesn’t live very long, because he won’t heed his training or learn from any natural consequences.

If God can see everything that goes on with death and destruction, why would not the Lord see all things within your own heart?

Prickly people won’t listen to advice, and they refuse to consult anyone when making decisions.

Truthful persons smile when they’re happy and frown when they’re sad, but falsehood smiles when it’s sad and frowns when it’s happy.

Learners are curious about life, but ignorant folk only feed on tabloid information.

Once in survival mode, it’s hard to ever get out of it; but those who thrive have learned how to be content in any circumstance.

It’s a whole lot better to be poor and right with God, than to be rich and on the wrong side of the Lord.

Peanut butter sandwiches eaten on the floor with love are much more delicious than eating a filet mignon with hatred around the table.

Our words reflect what is truly the attitude of our heart. And our attitudes betray what we actually think about God and others.

If you drop a foolish person into a roomful of people, it’s like putting a rotten egg in with the rest of the eggs when making an omelet. Or, to put it according to an old adage, “One bad apple spoils the whole bushel basket of them.”

This is why it’s the responsibility of everyone to develop wisdom and a virtuous life. A faith community, a neighborhood, a workplace, a family, or any group of people are adversely affected whenever there’s one arrogant fool amongst them.

But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.” (1 Peter 1:15-16, NIV)

It only takes one drop of arsenic to ruin a gallon of water and make it undrinkable. And if you choose to drink it anyway, well, you’ll suffer the consequences.

And this is why purity of heart, righteousness, justice, and goodness are so very important. It’s also why holiness is placed as a premium in Holy Scripture, because impurity ruins the community and defiles any group of people.

For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice. But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness. (James 3:16-18, NIV)

Wise living is clean living, in every sense of a person’s complete self – in body, mind, emotions, and spirit. The Book of Proverbs can help us with that.

O God, by whom the meek are guided in judgment, and light rises up in darkness for the godly: Grant us, in all our doubts and uncertainties, the grace to ask what you would have us to do, so that the Spirit of wisdom may save us from all false choices, and that in your light we may see light, and in your straight path may not stumble. Amen.

Consider Wisdom (Proverbs 1:1-19)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
By Peter Max, 2008

The proverbs of Solomon, son of David and king of Israel.

Here are proverbs that will help you recognize wisdom and good advice, and understand sayings with deep meaning. They can teach you how to live intelligently and how to be honest, just, and fair. They can make an inexperienced person clever and teach young people how to be resourceful. These proverbs can even add to the knowledge of the wise and give guidance to the educated, so that they can understand the hidden meanings of proverbs and the problems that the wise raise.

To have knowledge, you must first have reverence for the Lord. Stupid people have no respect for wisdom and refuse to learn.

My child, pay attention to what your father and mother tell you. Their teaching will improve your character as a handsome turban or a necklace improves your appearance.

My child, when sinners tempt you, don’t give in. Suppose they say, “Come on; let’s find someone to kill! Let’s attack some innocent people for the fun of it! They may be alive and well when we find them, but they’ll be dead when we’re through with them! We’ll find all kinds of riches and fill our houses with loot! Come and join us, and we’ll all share what we steal.”

My child, don’t go with people like that. Stay away from them. They can’t wait to do something bad. They’re always ready to kill. It does no good to spread a net when the bird you want to catch is watching, but people like that are setting a trap for themselves, a trap in which they will die. Robbery always claims the life of the robber—this is what happens to anyone who lives by violence. (Good News Translation)

“To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.”

Theodore Roosevelt

A proverb is a short pithy statement of experiential truth. Proverbs are meant to teach one how to live a good life. This sort of education requires a lifetime of learning. There is always wisdom to be gained.

In order to have true understanding and wisdom, there needs to be a balance of intellectual knowledge, affective feeling, and intuitive knowledge. Only possessing some of these elements makes one nothing more than a half-wit.

A commitment to virtue, morality, and ethics is a must in the acquisition of wisdom, and thus, a good life. Physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual maturity all take time. Marinading over a long period of time in the wisdom of biblical proverbs will prove to be a life saver. At the end of one’s life, they can look back with gratefulness and satisfaction, instead of sorrow and regret.

So, from the very outset of approaching the Book of Proverbs, the mindset and heart stance must not be one of popping a few proverbial pills in order to achieve a self-centered goal or gain an immediate solution.

Rather, proverbial wisdom demands daily immersion in its wise sayings. It requires implementation and experimentation every single day. There needs to be decisive action, coupled with contemplative reflection. Anything short of this truncates and stunts one’s growth.

There is yet one more necessary prerequisite toward the sagacious and good life. Without this, nothing is possible. But with this, all things are possible: Acknowledgment, awareness, and adoration of the Lord.

A fool is one who stubbornly refuses to take in the full range of epistemic knowledge. Being only book smart is to actually be stupid. To be only a walking heart of emotional intelligence is foolish. And to live only by gut instinct alone is to cut off yourself from wisdom’s teaching.

A wise life includes the head, the heart, and the gut – and to have them all aligned together as an integral whole. To live other than this is to live as a fool who believes they already have the answers and the key to knowledge and understanding.

Furthermore, this means that to take God and transcendent things off of the table, to begin with, is the most foolish decision a person can make. Conversely, to forsake the intellectual life and believe that all one needs is the spiritual, is to betray a woefully foolish approach to the good life.

There are also those who distance themselves from family, especially parents. On some level, this makes sense, if one had a childhood full of traumatic memories and difficult relationships.

However, learning to honor even these parents is to place oneself on the path of wisdom, and to learn what the good life truly entails. And this approach allows the person to see the good, and strain out the bad.

In other words, we discover that good and bad, wise and foolish, smart and stupid, exists within everyone and in every place. Wholesale jettisoning of persons and/or institutions gains us little to nothing.

This distancing from family and/or God is an attempt to assert some control, to effect one’s willpower upon life. But this will lead us away from the true path of wisdom.

That’s because wisdom is not something to be mastered. Wise sayings don’t exist to be collected, and their sagacity harnessed for one’s personal goals.

Yes, we are to avail ourselves of wisdom, yet perhaps not as we may believe or think. We do not capture wisdom, but are captured by it.

The importance of this mental, emotional, and spiritual stance must not be undervalued. We only learn wisdom by means of humility and reverence before powers greater than ourselves. Any vestige of pride in us shall cause wisdom to disappear and slip from our grasp.

Only until we both intellectually and experientially recognize that the essential operations of the universe are beyond us, shall anyone begin to trust and risk in a wisdom greater than our own.

“Without humility, all shall be lost.”

St. Teresa of Avila

Put another way, if we refuse to learn from God and from our parents, then we won’t.

Only by accepting this can anyone discern what to do and don’t do, say and don’t say, when faced with competing voices.

For there is continually a voice of foolishness, of wickedness, enticing us to get what we want quickly, selfishly, without any thought to the consequences or the effect upon others. A group of such voices becomes a gang who tries outdoing each other in competitive evil.

There is also a voice of wisdom, which admonishes us to avoid the fast, fun, and friendly gang of evil speech and behavior. The wise person discerns that what the wicked person does to another, comes back upon them.

The patient and powerful voice of wisdom communicates prudence in all things, that is, to do today what will lead to a better tomorrow.

So then, my friend, what is the thing – the decision, the action, the words – that you can and will do today which will help you accomplish a good, right, and just life for yourself (and others) for tomorrow?

Great God of all wisdom, help me to trust You and follow Your precepts in every twist and turn of my life. Grant me good understanding and guide my steps, so that Your will is done on earth, as it is always done in Your heaven. Amen.