Daily Lesson for August 28, 2018

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Job chapter 6 verses 1 through 4 and 8 through 13:

Then Job answered: 

2 ‘O that my vexation were weighed,

   and all my calamity laid in the balances! 

3 For then it would be heavier than the sand of the sea;

   therefore my words have been rash. 

4 For the arrows of the Almighty* are in me;

   my spirit drinks their poison;

   the terrors of God are arrayed against me. 

8 ‘O that I might have my request,

   and that God would grant my desire; 

9 that it would please God to crush me,

   that he would let loose his hand and cut me off! 

10 This would be my consolation;

   I would even exult* in unrelenting pain;

   for I have not denied the words of the Holy One. 

11 What is my strength, that I should wait?

   And what is my end, that I should be patient? 

12 Is my strength the strength of stones,

   or is my flesh bronze? 

13 In truth I have no help in me,

   and any resource is driven from me.

There is a secret no one ever wanted to tell us when we were children — though some children are unlucky enough to have to find it out on their own. The secret is almost unmentionable, and knowing it makes us at first believe we are unpardonable. This is part of the power the secret has over us, and it is a part of what keeps us feeling isolated and alone.

The secret is that there will be times in life when we will simply wish to die. 

No one wants to tell the secret, because doing so feels like giving permission for the unmentionable.  It feels like blaspheme. It feels like sin.

That’s part of the power of the secret. It keeps us feeling like wretched sinners. It keeps us hiding. We don’t want anyone to know we have the secret.

Job dares to tell the secret. 

This may be the most significant and life-giving thing the book of Job gives us. It opens the door on the secret, lets light into the dark, and allows those hiding in the dark to see that they are not alone. Job makes the hidden secret an open one.

Job doesn’t take what we think or feel away. It is what it is and we still have to keep it.  But because of Job we no longer have to keep it a secret.

And this, too, is a kind of salvation.