When they say ‘Curse God and Die’

People can say some harsh things to us, but when someone close says ‘Curse God and Die’ you have to go to a deeper place of faith than they possibly have.

I was watching him wilt. He was once like a flourishing plant, enjoying water and sun and growing and giving out beauty. But now the water had dried up, the sun beat down like a torturer, and the once gentle winds were hammering and stripping him down to a skeleton.

Who will come
To the aid
Of a man like me
Who will come
to a man of poverty

Who will rescue the ship
From the wayward sea
Who will come
To a man like me Derek Lind

Shooting the wounded

The first book I read about Mental Health and Christianity was ‘Why do Christians shoot their wounded‘ by Dwight L. Carlson. It’s a classic, in my opinion.

The author writes from a place where he has seen people with Mental illnesses getting wounded by well-meaning but ignorant Christians saying the mental illness was due to some sin in their life.

This ‘shooting of the wounded’ still goes on today, and it’s been around a very long time.

Whatever we don’t understand and are uncomfortable with, we attribute to sin. This calamity is because of something you’ve done wrong and God is punishing you.

It’s the law of retribution. You do something wrong, and you get the punishment. You do something good, and you get the reward. If bad things are happening, you must have done something bad.

But what if you have done nothing wrong and bad things happen.

The whiplash of the tongue

That’s the situation of the biblical character Job.

Every measure of what we would call success had been taken from him. His health, his wealth, his children.

He goes to the place which feels the most welcoming to his heart. The local dump site. There he sits in the ashes of yesterday’s goodness and picks at his skin.

That’s what you do when life is hollowed out. You grieve and go to a cave.

Another response, one of many, as we will see, is to lash out, particularly at those close to you and God.

The first of the whip lashes was from his wife. She, too had seen the trauma and tragedy of her children dying (Job 1:13-19)

The tongue swings are wide and deep.

Job took a potsherd with which to scrape himself, and sat among the ashes.
Then his wife said to him, ‘Do you still persist in your integrity? Curse God, and die.’ Job 2:8,9

Note that before she told him what to do, we see an affirmation of Job’s deepest quality, the one being tested. His integrity.

This word integrity (tummah in Hebrew) could also be translated as innocence.

Read this further here 

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