Job 36:26-30 - How great is God--beyond our understanding! The number of his years is past finding out. "He draws up the drops of water, which distill as rain to the streams;
the clouds pour down their moisture and
abundant showers fall on mankind. Who can
understand how he spreads out the clouds, how he thunders from
his pavilion? See how he
scatters his lightning about him, bathing the depths of the sea.
Elihu is still talking…he thinks he has to defend God to Job…he
thinks he has to convince the one man God picked to show off to satan of God’s
majesty and greatness. The more he talks…the
more puffed up in himself he becomes. This one who says he speaks from ‘a perfect
understanding of God’ … may understand
some things about God…but his knowledge is far from perfect.
None of us will ever know everything there is to know about
God because none of us are God. According to 1 Corinthians 13:9-12 … “ for we
know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the
imperfect disappears. When I was a
child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.
When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see
but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to
face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am
fully known.” I am pretty sure…since I have to admit I don’t know everything…that
perfection will come when I cross to the other side and see Jesus and his
father face to face in Heaven.
Elihu spends a passionate moment explaining to Job that he
needed to admit he was a sinner for God to let up on his suffering…and even
spews a well thought out argument about how God uses natural disasters to
punish his people. But Elihu was wrong on
these two points. Job had already been
justified by God himself to satan and since he used this same reasoning… he was
wrong in thinking that God causes all natural disasters.
Maybe ...just a theory…a feeling based on I Corinthians
10:13… “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is
faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you
are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.”
God knew exactly what Job could handle…and was ready to step in as soon as he
had reached his limit.
Elihu was dead on about the majesty of God. His passionate description of the incomprehensible
nature of God is a beautiful reminder that we are not supposed to understand
everything that happens…nor are we supposed to spend the majority of our time
trying to figure out the mysteries that God has deemed off limits to our human
hearts and minds. Our humanness simply can’t digest all of God’s great wisdom…so
he gives it to us in small doses…as we seek him out and search for a deeper
understanding of who he is….not what we can get from knowing who he is. Ecclesiastes
3:11 says… “ He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has
also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom
what God has done from beginning to end.”
Most of us are a little like Elihu…thinking we have all the
answers. But when we think like him we
run the danger of blaming God for our pain…and letting our suffering drive us
away from God…into a world of self-pity and stagnation. Job was fixing to get a
great lesson from God...he was going to stretch his understanding of suffering
big time. He was getting ready to reveal to Job that his suffering was so he
could prove to satan just how faithful Job was…no matter how bad it got. Job was going to get a whole new opportunity
to glorify God and use his pain to teach others about God’s unending love and
mercy.
Father…I thank you for this reminder that you are in control…and
you have hidden from me the things I can’t understand yet. Help me to seek you and continue to search
for you….so I can understand the next piece of wisdom I need to follow your
perfect will. I acknowledge in this
moment your perfect understanding…and pray that you continue to stretch my understanding
of your word… at just the right moment to recognize the purpose that you placed
me here on Earth. Go with me and bring to my mind the perfect verse that you
have already revealed to me for each and every situation I will face
today. Amen.
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