Job 16:17
Though there was no injustice on my hands,
And my prayer was pure.
As I was trying to sleep, I remembered this phrase from something I read that I understood to be a dig on religion. It was something vaguely about free will and vaguely touched on how religion was a false tool to limit your choice. One of the conclusions I made long ago was that Christianity was not a religion in this sort of sense, but it was a personal relationship with God. I put a poster on my door once in college that was ‘Relax, God is in charge.’ and showed the picture of a panda. Someone wrote ‘Who’s God on it?’ and I knew they were lost.
‘Injustice’ was also ‘violence’ or ‘outrage’. ‘On my hands’ was often ‘in my hands’ as a possession.
Other variation in the text is hard to convey.
When we talk about goals, our main two goals as Christians are to love God and love our neighbors. The ten commandments break down along these two lines, as does ever Jewish law throughout the Old Testament, and everything in the New Testament. For non-believers, the concept of living life to love God is probably a non-starter, and therefore, most everything we do is repugnant to them. There is a chance that many non-believers can go along with the Biblical goals of loving others, but only to the extent it helps them and does not get in the way of them living their own lives for their own selves.
One of my sister’s had a problem lying when she was growing up. It tainted everything she did for many years. Somewhere along the way, I stopped believing anything she said. I am sure she was just acting out, as our mother let it seem that our father had abandoned her; but I was left fatherless too, so I had no bigger well to draw from in how to deal with her, so I eventually didn’t. All these years later, our relationship is still not what it should be, but I think I have at least stopped doubting the truth about what she says.
I wrote a new prayer for myself the other day: ‘Please help me make the words I string together mean something to those I reach in the condition they are.’ We are all flawed with wounds from what our parents did or didn’t do, damaged from the actions we took to protect ourselves along the way, and either constantly trying to be a better Christian, or getting worse. If I am to love my neighbor, I have to actually take action. I have to get past their problems and do something that helps them. I know I will make mistakes, but the goal is not a mistake free life.
Written 7/24/25, Posted 9/5/25, Job 390/~1070
I added the ~1070 to keep me seeing the need to keep at this. ~680 more to go. The ~ is because some verses are intros that need no discussion on their own.