AP

Job 12:1-2  Then Job replied: “Doubtless you are the only people who matter, and wisdom will die with you!  But I have a mind as well as you; I am not inferior to you.  Who does not know all these things? 

Poor, suffering Job has just listened to his ‘comforter friend’ Zophar pour out his very hurtful assessment of the situation based on rational human wisdom and logic – Zophar’s syllogism is: ‘Major Premise: the good prosper and the wicked suffer; Minor Premise: Job is suffering; Conclusion: Job is wicked’.

Job’s response to this logic is quite telling – Yes, he too is a logical thinker, and he understands, and can’t deny, the logic!  But this godly sufferer looks beyond the ‘human logic’ to another realm beyond it.  Human logic normally serves us well in this world because we are made in the image of a faithful, consistent, creative God.  He has no problem with this, and we are normally bound by it in this life, just as we are bound by time-and-space in God’s good creation.

But God himself exists outside time-and-space, and although the ‘logic’ will always remain part of his creation, God is free to act in whatever way he will in the outworking of his eternal purposes.  It is a blessing that, for our benefit and well-being throughout this life, God normally confines himself to this ‘logic’, otherwise would find ourselves trying to cope with an uncertain, random world.  But, as Job rightly points out, this intended-for-our-benefit ‘wisdom’, suited for life in this world, will ‘die with us’.

Sadly, everything goes haywire when we choose to deny that God exists, and say, as our present culture so readily does, “‘I am all that matters’ in our ‘I-DO-ME’ world.”  Such ‘wisdom’ will ‘die with us’!  As God will remind us in the Book of Proverbs (9:10): “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.”  To ‘fear the LORD’ means to ‘let God be God’ and not to try and confine him to our very limited understanding of how things ought to work.  As William Cowper reminds us: “Judge not the Lord by feeble sense but trust him for his grace; behind a frowning providence he hides a smiling face.  His purposes will ripen fast unfolding every hour; the bud may have a bitter taste but sweet will be the flower.  Blind unbelief is sure to err and scan his work in vain; God is his own interpreter and he will make it plain.”  Godly Cowper himself had a very difficult life, sufffering from severe depression, and would have related well to Job’s reply to Zophar!

And let us say (sing) with Samuel Rodigast: “Whate’er my God ordains is right, he never will deceive me; he leads me by the proper path – I know he will not leave me.  I take, content, what he has sent, his hand can turn my griefs away, and patiently, I wait his day, and patiently, I wait his day.  Whate’er my God ordains is right, though now this cup, in drinking, may bitter seem to my faint heart I take it all, unshrinking; my God is true, each morn anew, sweet comfort yet shall fill my heart and pain and sorrow shall depart, and pain and sorrow shall depart.  Whate’er my God ordains is right, here shall my stand be taken: though sorrow, need, or death be mine yet I am not forsaken; my Father’s care is round me there, he holds me that I shall not fall, and so to him, I leave it all, and so to him, I leave it all.”

– Bruce Christian