Elections, the desire to see our enemies lose, and the places we are responsible for building
There is a line in Job that I have been thinking about as we approach another election. Elihu says to Job, “Yet now you are obsessed with the judgment due the wicked; judgment and justice have seized you” (Job 36:17, CSB). That last phrase catches my attention. Judgment and justice have seized you. Something we ought to pursue can become something that takes hold of us. We can become so occupied with what other people deserve that we lose sight of what is being asked of us.
We need to be careful with Elihu. He is speaking to a suffering man whose circumstances he does not fully understand. Job’s grief is real, and his questions deserve more than a lecture from someone confident that he has everything figured out. I would hesitate to borrow Elihu’s words to explain someone else’s suffering. But I think his words give us a question worth asking about ourselves: Can my concern for justice become an obsession with seeing someone else receive judgment?