Ingratitude--a dead end

(adapted from Fr. Richard Rohr)


When Job believes he is about to lose his life, he has a choice.


He can respond in one of two ways.


He can curse God and die; and I think he considers that option quite seriously for a moment...(I know I have considered the relief of pain and suffering for myself if I was to die and be done with the humiliations I was suffering!) or he can surrender to the love and the grace that he had become awakened to/aware of and say : "Why fifty years? Why did I deserve anything?"


When we take on that attitude, we have made a decision for grace, not "rights" or "entitlement"!


"Naked I came into the world, and naked I will leave"(Job 1:21)


What do I have brothers and sisters, that has not been given to me? All is grace. All is given.


Who gave me the hands I am using to type this or to do anything creative? Who created the eyes whose connectivity, configuration, construction, and 'wiring' I cannot begin to understand? I cannot make my hair grow. (Thanks be to God that HAVE hair at age 55.) It is all gift. From the beginning of my life to its end, everything is grace, everything is given. There is nothing in this life that I truly deserve. Truth is, I have no real rights. There is nothing I have to have.


When you lose your friend, your life giver, your lover, you have a choice: you can curse God and say, "Why was she taken from me?" You can accuse Yahweh of cruelty. Many folks do.


But there is an alternative. You can respond to this loss by praying: "Why was this one given to me at all?"; or "Why did I deserve a moment of love at all?" "Why have I deserved even a second of this life?"


Don't get me wrong here. I am NOT saying that there is no pain. I am not saying that loss of those close to us, or loss of career, or relationship does not cause us pain, somtimes so intense it is life altering. No, there is certainly pain in this grace given life. But I do have an ultimate choice about how I respond to this pain.
We all enter into events with expectations. We are all disappointed (and angry) when things don't turn out like we think they should, or when others are treated unfairly, or when things within the church body happen that are out of our control or realm of expectation.
Who do we think we are?!?


God is the creator and I am but a creature.


God created me out of nothing, and several years back, I did not exist at all.


"Yahweh gives and Yahweh takes away. Blessed be the name of Yahweh." Job 1:21


This is why Job is considered a seminal work of wisdom in the sacred literature of mankind.
Knowing that I don't deserve anything, and that everything about this life is grace is foundational wisdom for this life. It is essential in what we know as "the fear of the Lord". Knowing that He is our creator and has all creation (even the creation of me as a human) in His Mind---- is the beginning of wisdom. Thanks be to God.
















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