TO CHEW ON: " … I have uttered what I did not understand,
Things too wonderful for me, which I did not know." Job 42:3
I wonder if most of us couldn't say the same thing Job did: "I have uttered what I did not understand"—in misjudging someone's actions or motives, in giving a solution to a problem, in predicting how something would turn out…
Our knowledge is limited in so many ways. The Bible writers remind us:
- We don't know what a day will bring - Proverbs 27:1.
- We don't know how long we will live - Ecclesiastes 9:12.
- We don't understand life's mysteries. Though man has made progress Ecclesiastes 11:5 is still true in that we're still a long way from knowing how to duplicate a wind storm or the gestation of a babe within a womb.
- And just like we don't know many things about the natural world, we don't know many things about the spiritual world. For example, Jesus speaks of how God's grace comes to a human soul as mysteriously as the coming and going of the wind - John 3:8.
But Job did know one thing. He told God: "I know that You can do everything, and that no purpose of Yours can be withheld from You."
Do we have the same knowing? If we do, our anxiety about all the things we don't know can be put to rest as we trust the One who spoke through Isaiah:
"'For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways,' says the Lord.
'For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways
And My thoughts than your thoughts'" - Isaiah 55:8.
PRAYER: Dear God, thank You for Your omniscience and omnipotence. Help me to trust You when I don't understand. Amen.
MORE: Another Great Prayer of the Old Testament
Job's prayer here (Job 42:2-6) is considered another one of the Great Prayers of the Old Testament.
***********
The Holy Bible, New King James Version Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. - Used with permission.
No comments:
Post a Comment