Iron & Altar

"And the arm of pride is shattered." - Job 38:15

God's first question to Job, brother, is a question about command. Have you ever in your lifetime commanded the morning and shown the dawn its place? Job has led households, servants, and flocks. He has given a great many orders. God asks whether he has ever given one to the sun.

A steward is a man who manages what he was entrusted with. The word already says that someone else owns it. The trouble is that a steward who does the work well for long enough begins to feel like the owner. He knows the accounts. He knows the people. He knows where everything is. It becomes easy to say I have this.

God's answer to that feeling is in the same passage. The arm of pride is shattered. The image is of a raised arm, a man who has taken hold of the ends of the earth, and the arm breaks. Pride here means the arm you raise to command what was never yours.

Job's response is short. Behold, I am of little account. What can I answer you? I put my hand over my mouth. He does not lose his position. He gets it back, with interest, at the end of the book. What he loses is the arm. He stops giving orders to the morning.

Most men find it easier to give orders than to keep their hand over their mouth. Today is First Friday, a day when a man might go to Mass, receive Communion, and say nothing else. The Sacred Heart does not ask for a report.

Take yesterday's index card and add a second place where you saw God act. Then write one line about something you have been treating as yours to command, a person, a schedule, an outcome, and say out loud that it was entrusted, not owned. It is Friday, so add a sacrifice. Give up one small comfort today, and decide before you do who you are offering it for. Say their name when you give it up.

Lord, I have raised my arm over things you only lent me. Break what needs breaking, and let me keep my hand over my mouth long enough to hear you. I offer today's sacrifice for the one I have in mind. Amen.