Job 9:18

He does not suffer me to catch my breath,

   As He sates me with bitterness.

(Written 8/26, Posted 8/31, Job 190)

It’s Friday and I feel that my weekend is really a vacation this time. It will be short, but I feel like I will be able to lean into it and enjoy more than the one weekend we did anything this summer.

“Suffer” was also “let” or “allow”, but I much preferred the annoyance implied with suffer. “Catch” was consistent across my Jewish sources whereas my Christian sources had “get”, “regain”, “take”, and “catch”. I think I caught the drift.

“Sates” was also “fills”, “overwhelms”, and “feeds”. Sates had what seemed the best fitting sentiment. “bitterness” was also “misery” and “poison”. These three have slightly different meanings that could all fit in the stitch, the verse, the passages, etc. Poison came from my least favorite source, so I axed it at once. Misery balances the suffer of the first stitch but with only one source using it and the other six matching, I went with the majority. It also adds an ongoing outcome to the meaning that misery does not carry.

I read an article about the distribution of federal money to support the people negatively impacted by Hurricane Harvey. It is well past when anyone can really be helped by the money, but the powers that be are arguing over how to distribute it. One view was that the state had put in a rule that would help white people and the city and county wanted the money to help non-whites. I know this is an oversimplification, but it was spin to help that person get traction for their opinion. The polar opposite review was that the money needed to go to overwhelming numbers of people in the city that were impacted and not to the communities around that had less people impacted. I felt the state had done the wrong thing. I felt the city and county would do the wrong things. I remember sitting around grateful that God had us buy a home in a neighborhood that did not have a flooding issue (or at least a water in the house issue as we were unable to drive out of the neighborhood due to standing water in the flood protection areas).

My thought today was where am I to sit on these types of issues where two sides use different logic to support an outcome. Do I attack anything that might negatively impact the importance the Bible places on the family unit or do I not force my views onto others that do not believe the same as me? Do I strongly defend my belief that my daughter should only have to compete against girls and not against boys who want to be girls or do I just let it go because sports are not addressed in the Bible?

I once became bitter over an issue at work, I felt sated with suffering from the issue, and I may never get over it. But I do not want to get bitter about things I have no duty to worry about. God presents us with opportunities and issues all over the place and we would be run ragged trying to do them all. We need to learn to only do those things He places on us and to remember to only do them in His strength. Hard work is one thing and to be tackled, but impossible work needs to be left to someone else.