AP

Job 39:26-27  “Does the hawk take flight by your wisdom and spread its wings toward the south?  Does the eagle soar at your command and build its nest on high?”

I wonder how Job felt as he listened to the LORD God speak these words?  At one level, throughout these four chapters leading to the conclusion of the book (38-41), God is ‘putting him in his place’ and addressing his feeling of utter helplessness, letting him know that he is God and Job isn’t.

But at another level I think, if I were Job, I would find the forthright ‘reprimand’ very comforting!  Because of sin, our biggest problem as we serve out our allotted lifespan on earth (our ‘—’) is that, although we were ‘made in the image and likeness’ of God, we are not God, but would like to be!  What I find most comforting about these chapters is this: In my sinful condition I too easily slip into thinking I am CEO of my life, and when things go wrong it must be my fault.  This error is so strong in my psyche that I often feel responsible for everything that goes wrong in anything I am connected with (or even in the whole world – I was born in 1940 and sometimes wonder if I was the cause of WWII!  It is also comforting to know that the common response to problems in our lives is “What have I done to deserve this?”

The lesson Job (and I) must learn is that God is sovereign, that he has never resigned from being CEO of his world.  Yes, Genesis 2 tells me that as the creature that was ‘made in God’s image’, I have been given the responsilibity of caring for the creation, which I try to be always thoughtful in doing, and to ‘rule’ over the animal Kingdom – which means I should be able to train and ride horses (which I can’t do but others can) – but these chapters in Job remind me very clearly of the limitations of my ‘authority’ in creation.

I think Job was able to receive these words from the LORD gracefully and profitably (possibly unlike his four ‘comforters’) because he had confessed at the very beginning of his long and gruesome ordeal: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised.” (1:21)

“Lord, please help me to learn this lesson well and reprimand me whenever I try to be you.  As I currently go through the early chapters of Exodus with my little Hebrew reading group on Tuesday mornings, and as I sit under an excellent sermon series on these same chapters on Sunday evenings, please help me avoid making the same mistake Pharaoh continued to make.”  “This life I live is not my own for my Redeemer paid the price; he took it to be his alone, to be his treasure and his prize.  The things of earth I leave behind to live in worship of my King; his is the right to rule my life, mine is the joy to live for him.” (Michael Morrow)

– Bruce Christian