Daily Lesson for January 10, 2019

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Job chapter 24 verses 21 through 25:


21
“They harm the childless woman,
    and do no good to the widow.
22
Yet God prolongs the life of the mighty by his power;
    they rise up when they despair of life.
23
He gives them security, and they are supported;
    his eyes are upon their ways.
24
They are exalted a little while, and then are gone;
    they wither and fade like the mallow;
    they are cut off like the heads of grain.
25
If it is not so, who will prove me a liar,
    and show that there is nothing in what I say?”

It has been 2,500 years since Job was written, yet today’s Lesson could have been written this very morning. Strong and powerful men, Job says, do harm to vulnerable women with impunity.  It seems the more that things have changed in three millennia the more they’ve stayed the same.

Yet Job reminds us that the lives of these men are only sustained by a single and simple breath, which will one day, like all breath, give out. They are strong now, but will soon be weak, mighty now, but in the blink of an eye old and shriveled lying in bed in some nursing home somewhere.

Time tarries for no man, no matter how mighty or strong. And no matter how cruel or abusive or exploitative, the sands of time are falling and will soon run out.

And they who grabbed the world by their then mighty hands will be helpless and feeble and left to the hands of the Almighty God . . .


Note: I’m reading the Bible through this year. Join me!  Monday’s Daily Lesson will be on Job chapters 29 through 37.