When You Try to Explain Yourself, Where Are You?

Job Chapter 6.

Job begins to speak.

“My suffering should be weighed.”

“The arrows of the Almighty are in me.”

Job speaks about his pain.

He does not repeat his friends’ words.

He simply says what is happening to him.

His friends had spoken.

There is meaning.Things will get better.

These words are not wrong.

But they do not reach him.

People try to explain suffering.

Why did this happen?

What went wrong?

They believe that if they understand,

they will feel safe.

But Job says,

that is not enough.

The weight of this moment

cannot be reached by those words.

People want to be understood.

They want others to see them clearly.

But sometimes,

the more words are added,

the more alone they feel.

Job was not understood.

He heard the right words.Still,

they did not reach him.

So he begins to speak for himself.

But even then,

he is still inside explanation.

When explanation continues,

it moves us away

from God’s speaking.

This is no place to remain.

So he turns back toward God.

Not to find an answer.

But to return.

There,

awareness is given.

Even in the silence, morning still comes.

Question

When you try to explain yourself,

where are you?

Do you stay inside human explanation?

Or do you turn back toward God,

and stand in the place

where awareness is given?