Gift of the Giver (2)

You have granted me life and goodness; and Your care has guarded my spirit. Job 10:12  NASB

Goodness – As we discovered the last time we examined this verse, the translation “goodness” just misses the point.  God doesn’t grant us goodness, at least not in this verse.  What He grants is ḥesed—relationship, reciprocity, transitivity, and action.  ḥesed, the epitome of divine character, is part of what it means to be in His image.  It’s an essential part of being human because, as Brené Brown correctly notes, we are hardwired for connection.  Man in isolation slips toward animal existence.

We could review the full range of ḥesed but today let’s consider some of the implications rather than the etymology.  The first is obvious.  If God grants ḥesed, then it is His intention that we embrace and maximize this essential human element. In a word, we are destined for community.  God’s intention is connection.  When Paul exhorts believers to assemble together, he’s not simply recommending fellowship.  He’s trying to keep us human.  In fact, we might go so far as to say that there is no such thing as a personal relationship with God if we mean an independent, unconnected, autonomous spiritual existence.  ḥesed demands involvement, dependence, even contingent connection.  We would have known this implicitly if we fully embraced the fact that the smallest building block of biblical society is family.  The Western paradigm of the self-made man is not just a myth; it’s heresy.

What’s even more important is that the opportunity to experience ḥesed isn’t earned.  It’s a gift.  In fact, it is the gift from being alive.  God doesn’t care about human existence, as if all that matters is being animated.  He cares about us, the plural applied.  That begins with the “us” of God and me, but it doesn’t end until I experience the “us” of you and me.  The prayer is “Our Father,” not “My Father.”  Everything about the biblical message is insieme, a nice Italian word that means “together.”  And, by the way, if we really embraced this idea of human existence, the world would be a very, very different place.  With great sadness and equal concern, we now recognize that the world is on a course to destroy its own humanity by creating as many dividing lines as it possibly can.  The opposite of ḥesed is not evil, as might be suggested in this translation.  The opposite of ḥesed is self, a concept that summarizes hell-bent destruction of the divine intention.

Topical Index: ḥesed, relationship, connection, human, Job 10:12