Creation Is Amazing!
Opening Prayer
Lord God Almighty, clearly Yours is the kingdom, Yours is the power, and Yours is the glory!
Read Job 38:1-41
For additional translations of the passage, use this link to Bible Gateway.
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Scripture taken from the THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION, NIV Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Reflect
“How many are Your works, O Lord! In wisdom You made them all; the earth is full of Your creatures” (Psa. 104:24). A great call to praise and worship.
Now–at last!–Job’s need for God to communicate with him is met. There are no answers to his questions (or ours), but there is perhaps something more satisfying–the ancient equivalent of the best televised portrayals of nature and the universe you’ve ever seen (even if the presenters do not give God the credit!). Have you ever watched a National Geographic TV program, for example, and felt your heart lifted in profound worship and praise of God? Better still, have you ever been out and experienced nature firsthand and been bowled over by wonder?
Notice the style of God’s speech in this chapter and the next; you may not be able to stop reading! Here we have a disputation, however, rather than an interrogation; it offers the opportunity for God to challenge Job’s perspective without filing a formal indictment against him. The rhetorical (and sometimes ironic) questions gently forge a bond between God and Job. The aim is for Job to surrender his complaint and avowal of innocence (ch. 31) and to trust both his reputation and his future to God.
We can answer many of these rhetorical questions today through scientific discoveries (e.g., we understand how the tides work), but we are nevertheless left with mind-boggling truths about creation, even though the unanswered questions about the problem of evil and undeserved suffering do not go away. Today, knowing so much more than Job did about space and nature, it seems to me that God appears more awesome still. Creation does not revolve around Job–or you and me!–yet it somehow puts our troubles into some sort of perspective. That only helps, however, if, like Job, we can trust our circumstances and our future to God.
Apply
For you, what is it about the natural world that is a most awesome experience? Is it the weather? Mountains? Vast, starry constellations? Whatever it is, turn it into a theme for praise.
Closing prayer
Lord, at times life is a puzzle! It is full of wonder and beauty, but also of indescribable horror. Help me to keep my focus on You.
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