The Itinerants Path

We were discussing in our class recently about the Book of Job from thre Old Testament. I’m aware that Job is a fictitious person representing the suffering ancient people of Israel after the exilic period from the Persian. These were the times when they were oppressed much and required to pay taxes heavily from thier products. In this book, it is presented how Job questioned about his suffering. He questioned where and when did he committed sin that is why he is suffering.

Job’s friends asked him to admit his sinfulness and curse God. Yet Job, the faithful one, questioned his suffering. His sons and daughters were taken away from him, his wealth of thousand sheeps and cattles, vast land and pastures vanished, and at the end, he himself suffered from a dreadful skin disease.

Who among us can endure such suffering? If, when my father died three years ago, my family suffered such lost, were not able to grasp the meaning of his death, who and how am i coping this time? For sure, not only me and my family suffered such kind of experience. At present, I’m working with the kids in a settlement area where suffering differs from one another. Every family complains of what do they have today. Even when I was still in Payatas area, where this famous mountain of garbage is located, suffering speaks loudly of what I have seen and experienced.

Maybe a lot, and most of us, or all of us question where is God in these times of suffering? Our country is experiencing turmoil, stress and unstable economic. Then does God forsaken us forever? I think he’s not forsaken us. Still, we experience these things for a greater wisdom behind these. It is always a wisdom to recognize God’s unfathomable wisdom, wisdom that we will just realize when we start appreciating his goodness in us in every experiences. It’s on the attitude of seeing them and being hopeful for the greater grace that works, not in our own term but God’s term, not in our own time but in his own time.

The question about suffering is not new, and not to be feared of, for in a very hopeful heart, there is a spark of the divine that works in us, just believe and trust, more than how we trust ourselves…

(Fruit of Reflection)

On this day..

• Happiness For An Ordinary Teacher - 2009
• Body, Mind and Spirit - 2006
• Practicing Safe Celibacy - Review - 2006