YOUR GOD IS TOO SMALL
Opening Prayer
Do something mighty today, Lord. Surprise me with your bountiful grace and generous mercy. I lift my whole being in praise to you.
Read JOB 38:22-41
22 “Have you entered the storehouses of the snow
or seen the storehouses of the hail,
23 which I reserve for times of trouble,
for days of war and battle?
24 What is the way to the place where the lightning is dispersed,
or the place where the east winds are scattered over the earth?
25 Who cuts a channel for the torrents of rain,
and a path for the thunderstorm,
26 to water a land where no one lives,
an uninhabited desert,
27 to satisfy a desolate wasteland
and make it sprout with grass?
28 Does the rain have a father?
Who fathers the drops of dew?
29 From whose womb comes the ice?
Who gives birth to the frost from the heavens
30 when the waters become hard as stone,
when the surface of the deep is frozen?
31 “Can you bind the chains[a] of the Pleiades?
Can you loosen Orion’s belt?
32 Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons[b]
or lead out the Bear[c] with its cubs?
33 Do you know the laws of the heavens?
Can you set up God’s[d] dominion over the earth?
34 “Can you raise your voice to the clouds
and cover yourself with a flood of water?
35 Do you send the lightning bolts on their way?
Do they report to you, ‘Here we are’?
36 Who gives the ibis wisdom[e]
or gives the rooster understanding?[f]
37 Who has the wisdom to count the clouds?
Who can tip over the water jars of the heavens
38 when the dust becomes hard
and the clods of earth stick together?
39 “Do you hunt the prey for the lioness
and satisfy the hunger of the lions
40 when they crouch in their dens
or lie in wait in a thicket?
41 Who provides food for the raven
when its young cry out to God
and wander about for lack of food?
New International Version (NIV)Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Meditate
‘Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory in the heavens.’1 Open your eyes to see it more clearly today.
Think Further
God continues to allow his creation to speak for him, giving Job stunning revelation. Like shopkeepers pulling back the shutters and removing the covers from their goods, the Lord is revealing to Job the wonders of his amazing design. Majestic poetry lifts the weary sufferer from focusing on his dreadful circumstances to the glory that exists around him. During my decades of pain and physical weakness, I have found it so helpful to get outside whenever I could do so and gaze on the natural world. The roughest of weathers holds a bracing beauty, experienced even in the ‘storehouses’ of snow and hail (v 22) but also in the searing heat of the desert (vs 26,27).
God oversees all these natural environments that humanity finds so hard to predict and even harder to tame. He can reserve hailstorms to use in battle or to send in judgment upon the nations2 but is tender enough to describe himself as the one who ‘fathers the drops of dew’ (v 28). When the Lord directs Job’s eyes to the heavens above with the constellations of Pleiades and Orion and the Bear, set amid millions of stars, he puts before him, and before us, so many reasons to bow the knee and confess that he is Lord. God truly has set his glory in the heavens.
Has this amazingly powerful God been absent during Job’s agony? Does God’s silence in that season mean that he was not active? No, through it all he has constantly been working out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will.3 Even in Job’s darkest hour, God has been ‘sustaining all things by his powerful word’.4 As Job gazes, astounded, at the wonders of God’s handiwork in the universe, his eyes are indeed opened.5 So may ours be today.
Apply
Read Psalm 8:3,4 and thank God for his astonishingly complex creation and his amazing love for human beings like you and me.
Closing prayer
Almighty God, I continue to be amazed that in your greatness, you know me and have time for me. I thank you for the joy that brings to my heart.
1 Ps 8:1 2 Josh 10:11; Isa 28:2 3 Eph 1:11 4 Heb 1:3 5 Job 42:5
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