Let's keep on reading! Below are my reflections on Chapters 7-9. Please watch the video and comment with your questions, answers or thoughts!
Questions to Ponder:
What are some actions and changes we need to make to move from understanding
the poor as people to simply “take care of” and view them as people who need to
be seen, heard, respected, and treated as equal?
When you look at the description of Job’s life, what are some of the qualities that
you want said about how you live your own life? How can you start building those
habits?
What about our worship practices are pleasing to God because they reflect justice?
What about our worship practices might irritate God because they deflect from
justice?
Share a part of the reading that taught you something about justice.
Next week we discuss chapters 10-12.
This section made me ponder - don't we all deserve to be accepted as who we are? Why do we feel such a need to "fix" people. Job was accepting and respectful of all types of people, no matter what their condition in life. Jesus kept demonstrating the same to his disciples. Yet for some reason we tend to assume that poor means unhappy, or uneducated equals a miserable life. I think it has more to do with our desire/tendency to judge and very little to do with justice. All that being said, I don't fault people for the concern they feel, the help they want to give. Justice is finding the balance between caring and controlling, between respecting and dominating, and between empowering and enforcing. Justice is love and love is caring, respecting, and empowering.
ReplyDeleteThanks for reading and commenting! I really like your phrase Love is empowering!
DeleteI continue to be stuck by the fact that justice and righteousness are action words. It is be expressed, done, and lived both individually and corporately.
ReplyDeleteDoing justice isn’t just helping people survive. It is helping them THRIVE in their soul and spirit, as well as their body. Too often we focus on making sure the body is alright – meaning there is food, there is shelter, there is clothing. As important as those things are, they do not nourish the heart. If we’re truly living/doing a just life, our attitude towards those in need is about more than just supplying physical needs. The author points out that Job is a biblical model that justice and righteousness can “resemble the selfless stewarding of power and resources.” The takeaway for me, ‘what does selfless stewarding’ mean in my life. And more importantly, what does it mean as I DO justice and righteousness; making sure that those in need don’t just survive but actually THRIVE.
ew
Thanks for being a part of this EW! I appreciate your thoughts and insight. I like your focus on the "selfless stewarding of power and resources."
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