Today Bible (성경) Just Not Scratching the Itch

[amen]

▧ Today's Passage / Job 8:1 - 8:9
1 Then Bildad the Shuhite replied:

2 “How long will you say such things? Your words are a blustering wind.

3 Does God pervert justice? Does the Almighty pervert what is right?

4 When your children sinned against him, he gave them over to the penalty of their sin.

5 But if you will look to God and plead with the Almighty,

6 if you are pure and upright, even now he will rouse himself on your behalf and restore you to your rightful place.

7 Your beginnings will seem humble, so prosperous will your future be.

8 Ask the former generations and find out what their fathers learned,

9 for we were born only yesterday and know nothing, and our days on earth are but a shadow.”

▧ Reflection
One evening I sat in a living room with my small group, deeply engaged in Bible study. We were going over a familiar passage in the Gospels when a question blossomed in my mind. I proposed the question to the small group, and one by one they gave their response to it. Their answers, however, seemed superficial to me. It’s not that they were wrong, necessarily; it’s that those responses suddenly didn’t satisfy me. In fact, their answers struck me as kind of standard, Sunday-school responses-responses that may have technically answered my question, but ones that failed to plumb the depths of the spirit behind the question. I kept trying to get them to understand the question in the way I meant it-not as a simple question to be answered, but as I was experiencing it myself, a challenge to dig deeper to a reality beyond
simple answers.

Finally, our leader conceded that everyone’s responses to me weren’t getting at the core of what I was trying to explore. He put it memorably, like this: “I guess we’re just not scratching your itch.”
In an attempt to make sense of Job’s suffering, Bildad the Shuhite appeals to his sense of history. “Ask the former generations and find out what their fathers learned, for we were born only yesterday and know nothing”(vv. 8-9a). This certainly seems to make sense. After all, anytime we’re bewildered or confused, it can be useful to turn to our elders for wisdom and guidance. On one level, we can rely on standard, Sunday-school answers that have been passed down to us from the previous generation.

Yet, just like my friends’ responses, Bildad’s words ring hollow, for he’s not able to understand that Job’s experience was real. For Job, the suffering was immediate, was deep, was now-and he needed something from God in that moment. Past explanations, theological abstractions or common wisdom just weren’t scratching his itch.

Ultimately, we cannot live someone else’s faith from a different place or time. Our faith is found in the present moment. Tradition can guide us, but it can never serve as a substitute for seeking answers for ourselves.

-M.O.

▧ Application
Have you ever found yourself with serious questions about God or your faith and shared them with someone, only to have them shut you down? Do you tend to rely on the apparent certainty of someone else’s faith to cover over your own doubts and misgivings? Allow yourself to experience your own faith as it is, complete with its strengths and its weaknesses. Search for answers that satisfy you instead of relying on standard-issue answers. God is alive in each of us and communicates to each of us. Don’t settle for stale theology when God wants a living relationship.

---------------------------------------------------------The source : http://qt.swim.org/living/