Job 14:10

But humans die, wasted away,

   Breath their last, and are no more.

This has been a very odd week. I have alternated between anger and happiness, unproductivity and accomplishment, and what seems like a host of other extremes. I feel like today is a day I can do more things I have been putting off. But today also wraps up a week of absolutely no work to do or get paid for.

‘Humans’ was ‘mortals’ twice and ‘man’ the others. Not sure why I chose this path, but the clarity of meaning works. ‘Wasted away’ was also ‘defeated’ or a verb as ‘are laid low’, ‘laid away’, ‘languish’, ‘wearies’, and grows faint’.

‘Breath their last’ was also ‘expire’, ‘giveth up the ghost’, and ‘gives out’. ‘Are no more’ was also the question ‘Where are they?’ the other seven times. The question seems “right”, but I didn’t like it.

Often when I look at my goals of finishing this project or adding in pieces on my Bible Study or getting my “stuff” together, I long for a period when I have no work to do. Now that I have no work to do, it is kind of disconcerting. Now that I have realized I am in this spot and have gotten over the things I was wasting time being angry about, I am hoping to ‘make hay while the sun shines’. There’s that cliché again.

One of our new prayers is that we will get good neighbors when the house on the end of the street sells. Whoever buys it will be the fourth owner while we have been here the whole time. We have a rental next door, and the tenants have not all been the best of neighbors, but we did learn that renting is not something we aspire to do with anything we own. But we have also come to the conclusion that we do not want to own something we have no use for/can’t use enough.

The snapshot that is this verse makes the whole of human existence potential seem a bunch of nothingness. If that were true, then the contrasting cultures that exist around Christianity would all still be of equal value. But the great value of Christianity is that human existence is not just about the here and now but has eternal consequences. Yes, the longer humans live, the weaker they become, but after we die, we are still somewhere. We will either be in heaven with God or in hell without Him. So maybe the question should replace the ‘and are no more’; but I know the answer I want: to be in heaven with God eternally.

Written 8/30/24, Posted 9/20/24, Job 326