God in a box

Reading Job this morning, and that’s what the book is about.  Job’s friends try to put God in a box.  If you do A, God will reward you with B.  It is only in grief, tragedy, lament that real worship begins, not grasping God for His gifts but clinging to reality in the midst of confusion.  God does not answer with formulas but with poetry, not with explanations but with presence.  Today the churches will be praying and fasting for the end of the epidemic.  We ask for that.  But we don’t pretend that if there is enough outcry, then surely God will act the way we want.  No, we pray to say that we have not given up, that we still seek God’s presence in the face of loss.