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Mid-century illustration of Job sitting in the ashes under a storm, light breaking through the clouds

Job 23:17 · World English Bible

Job 23:17 Meaning Because I Was Not Cut Off Before

Because I was not cut off before the darkness, neither did he cover the thick darkness from my face.

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What does Job 23:17 mean?

There are times when suffering is not taken from you and the darkness is not hidden from your face. You may long to be spared, to be removed before the pain arrives, and yet there you remain, awake inside it.

From the Ego v. Being reading below.

Job 23:17 through 1 lens

The same verse, read by one tradition.

EGO & BEING

Ego v. Being

There are times when suffering is not taken from you and the darkness is not hidden from your face. You may long to be spared, to be removed before the pain arrives, and yet there you remain, awake inside it. This is not cruelty. It is an invitation.

Darkness that you are forced to face becomes conscious. When you stop running from your pain and allow it simply to be there, fully witnessed, it can no longer live in you unexamined. That is why the darkness was left uncovered before your eyes. Only what you turn and look at with full presence can finally lose its power over you and release its hold.

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Ego v. Being lens

Live Job 23:17 today

  1. Sit for five minutes with the feeling you have been outrunning with your phone all week. Do not fix it or explain it. Just let it be there with you and see that you survive it.
  2. Tell one person the true answer to "how are you" today. Not the long version, just something honest instead of "good, busy."
  3. When the hard feeling shows up mid workday, do not reach for the tab or the snack or the scroll. Let it move through you for one minute, then go back to what you were doing.

What have you been looking away from that might lose its grip if you finally looked?

The same truth in other traditions

Buddhism

The lotus does not grow in clean water. It needs the mud, and nothing about the mud has to be denied for the flower to open.

Hinduism · Bhagavad Gita

You cannot escape the field you have been placed in. Standing in it with clear eyes is the only way through, and the running is its own kind of suffering.

Sufism · Rumi

Grief, shame, and fear come as guests at the door. Welcome them in rather than barring the door, because each one is clearing you out for something.

Mid-century illustration of Jesus teaching the crowd on a hillside above the sea

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