Showing posts with label despair. Show all posts
Showing posts with label despair. Show all posts

The Best, Worst Things about Bearing God's Image

   A preview of February's email-only article.


Jared Rice

LIFE HAS A way of beating us down at times. But no matter how bad our circumstances, often the worst part is not knowing why terrible things occur.

Every month I publish an exclusive article for my email subscribers, and this month we're looking at Job 10. Job reached some depths of despair most of us will never know, but he always held on to one truth. We discuss that truth in this month's article.

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Here's a snippet of this month's exclusive:

When we open up the tenth chapter of Job, we find our protagonist in a dark place.
Of course, Job spends most of the book in metaphorical darkness, but here in chapter ten he takes a turn for the worse, admitting, "I loathe my life" (v. 1). Life, the most precious of gifts, the most beautiful and fragile and rarest of possessions, and yet Job loathes it.
What does it mean to loathe? Merriam-Webster defines loathing as great disklike; disgust. Job is disgusted with his own life. Why? You know the reasons. His children have died. His possessions have been plundered. His health has deteriorated to an excruciating degree. His wife told him to "Curse God and die" (Job 2:9). His friends, helpful at first, descend into jerk territory—accusing him of sin, suggesting his children deserved their fate, and proclaiming he should repent—all for want of a better theology.
Penniless, abandoned, bereaved, confused, accused, and afflicted, you can see why Job's life might disgust him. Earlier in the book he even said it would have been better if his mother had miscarried! That's some pretty dark stuff right there.
Have you ever loathed your life?

 
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How I Failed American History and Became the Luckiest Guy in Oklahoma

My first F couldn’t have come at a worse time. I don’t know if there’s ever a good time to fail a college course, but this one felt especially inopportune.

On scholarship at a private Christian college, one condition of my financial aid was, of course, grade point average. Without the scholarship, attending the university was not a fiscal possibility.


Amboo213 (CC)





I’ll spare the details for another post, probably titled, Why I Suck at Forgiveness, but I will say this. I earned the failing grade. I did. I earned it. Nevertheless, I do believe my situation merited some mercy.

But the point here isn’t why I failed the class, but what happened as a result. My life turned upside down. I despaired.

I don’t fail courses. I ace them.

But I did fail.