Today we
begin with God’s discourse.
J
Clarity In God’s Perspective
God makes
His position pretty clear right out of the gates. “Who is it that darkens counsel by words
without knowledge?” Ouch. I don’t think God is sugar coating anything
here. Basically, God just looked to Job
and said, “You think you are wise, but you speak as though you have no wisdom
within you.” Again, let me reiterate:
ouch.
I’ve got
quite a bit to say here about this topic, so bear with me a little. I think this verse is worth focusing on. You see, people are all the time giving
spiritual advice along these lines, “Tell God what you are thinking. He’s a big God, he can take it.” I think there are three lines of thought that
we must consider regarding this advice.
- First, the advice is absolutely right. God is big enough to take it. We aren’t going to hurt God with our words.
- Second, God does already know what we are thinking before we say it. So in a sense, we have no reason not to say it.
- However, there is a third point that needs to be considered. Are we big enough to receive the rebuke that we are going to deserve by speaking our mind?
This is a
huge point. Remember that Job is
righteous. God pronounced him righteous
in the beginning and God is going to still pronounce him righteous in a few
chapters. Yet even though Job is
righteous he is still deserving of God’s lowering the boom upon him in this
verse. There is no denying it. So yeah, go ahead and say what you want to
say to God. He is big enough and He
already knows what you are thinking. But
if you are going to be so bold as to confront God with your words, be prepared
to be put in your place, too.
I don’t
mean that as a threat, so please don’t hear it as one. We should be about open communication with
God. But the reality is that every
single one of us always has something that can be corrected, improved, made
better, etc. When we go to God with any
kind of complaint, frustration, irritation, or whatever there is always
something that God is going to say about us and what we can improve first. That’s what I mean. When we go to God with our irritations and
frustrations and things like that, we should anticipate that part of the
education process is God beginning by educating us and changing us.
We can see
this same thing going on in most of the prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures. When Elijah goes into the cave to find God
and ask God why he is being persecuted, is it not Elijah who God corrects first
and foremost? (See 1 Kings 19) When Habakkuk complains to God about what he
is seeing with his eyes, God turns to Habakkuk and begins the education with
the truth that Habakkuk wouldn’t believe what God was about to do even if he
was able to see the plan in action. (See
Habakkuk 1) None of us can comprehend
the mind of God, so when we decide to probe the mind of God we must expect the
lesson to start with us.
Now, mind
you, I don’t think that is any reason to not approach God with our frustrations
and complaints. In truth, I think that
is every more the reason to do it! When
we are frustrated and unable to make sense of the world, we must confess that at
least part of the problem is ourselves! In
those moments we aren’t seeing through God’s eyes anymore. We aren’t on the same page as God. So when we are frustrated or confused we
should go to God and look forward to that correction because we are in need of
it!
When we go
before God, we should expect correction.
That’s my point. I’m not saying
we should refrain from going before God because we fear the correction that
comes. Rather, I am saying that we go
before God and embrace the correction that we know we desperately need.
Wow. I’ve killed almost all of my space on a
single verse in Job 38. See? I told you that I was looking forward to
God’s reply!
Further Examples
The truth
is that the rest of the chapter is simply giving examples of what I have
already spoken about. God gives example
after example of how Job’s perspective simply cannot grasp God’s
perspective. Job may think himself wise,
objective, and all-knowing but the reality is that he is just a single man with
a quite limited understanding of the world.
In this I
think we have every reason to be humbled.
Take the greatest scientist in the world. That person may know everything about their
field, but can how deeply can they speak to a non-related area of science? For example, can an astrophysicist speak very
knowledgably about doing a kidney transplant?
Can that scientist speak meaningfully about the poetry of Edgar Allen
Poe? Can that scientist know precisely
what the weather is like on the opposite side of the world at every given
moment? Do you see what I am getting at
here? We can rise to great heights from
a human perspective. But even the
greatest among us lacks an amount of knowledge that is far greater than the amount
of knowledge that the person actually knows!
We can be
great from a human standard, but from God’s perspective we know so very
little. Take a minute today and think
about all the things you know absolutely nothing about. Then consider that God is an expert on
everything that you know nothing about.
Then consider that God is an expert on all the things that you don’t
even realize that you don’t even know about them! That should help inspire some awe towards God
and remind us just how cool it is that God chooses to be in a relationship with
us and made that relationship possible with Christ.
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