Where are you when you are told what is right?

Job Chapter 4

Eliphaz, his friend, begins to speak.

“You have instructed many.

But now it comes to you, and you cannot endure it.”

He continues:

“Who that was innocent has ever perished?”

Suffering has a cause.

It is thought to come from the person.

What is “right” is spoken.

What appears here is human righteousness.

Suffering must have a reason.

There must be a cause.

Therefore, it can be explained.

This structure seems correct.

Yet what is happening to Job

does not fit within this framework.

The more “rightness” is spoken,

the more it drifts away from Job’s reality.

What is being asked here

is not whether something is right or wrong.

It is where you stand.

When people see suffering,

they try to explain it.

Why did this happen?

What went wrong?

If they understand, they feel at ease.

But those words do not always sustain a person.

Words that are right

can make someone more alone.

 Does what is right sustain a person? 

When you are told what is right,

where are you?

Are you inside that “rightness”?

Or do you remain standing before God?