The Keeper of Heaven & Earth

OT: Job 38-42
NT: Revelation 4

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Job 38:22-30 — "Have you entered the storehouses of the snow, or have you seen the storehouses of the hail, / which I have reserved for the time of trouble, for the day of battle and war? / What is the way to the place where the light is distributed, or where the east wind is scattered upon the earth? / Who has cut a channel for the torrents of rain, and a way for the thunderbolt, / to bring rain on a land where no one lives, on the desert, which is empty of human life, / to satisfy the waste and desolate land, and to make the ground put forth grass? / Has the rain a father, or who has begotten the drops of dew? / From whose womb did the ice come forth, and who has given birth to the frost of heaven? / The waters become hard like stone, and the face of the deep is frozen."

How great is our God! So often we think of God as being this little old man with a long white beard sitting on a golden throne and tallying our rights and wrongs on a chalkboard. We think of God as being more like Santa Claus, a gift giver to good little girls and boys, or as a vengeful, out-to-get-ya, kind of being. But Scripture paints a much grander picture of God. A picture that can only be described in poetry or simile. And can only be accurately described by God Himself. And we largely fail to take this picture of God into mind when we approach His word or His Church. I fear that we have largely failed in the Protestant church to celebrate the mystery and grandeur of God. We tend to lean towards the "God-as-my-best-friend" side of the relationship scale and not see Him as the sovereign, divine, all-powerful, ever-present Spirit who created all things by the power of His word.

God in the final "act" of Job sets the patriarch straight. Neither Job or his friends knew why Job was suffering. Only God knew. And to speculate as to a reason — without divine revelation — was to assume knowledge that none but God possessed. Job did not suffer because of his wickedness. Nor did he suffer so he could better appreciate his life. God's point is that only He can see the hidden things of this world — including the knowledge to lofty for mankind. It is that God is God and we are not. And His ways are not our ways, nor His thoughts our thoughts (Isa 55:9). And to assume one thing or another about why we are where we are is to assume what we cannot know. So we need to just accept it and move on. Job eventually did. And God blessed him as a result.

Be God's.