When disaster strikes, when health fails, when confusion seems to reign, when the earthly things I cling to fall away — I am left in awe and wonder by God’s Word to Job.
Job had everything taken from him. Wife. Children. Home. Possessions. Job longed for days gone by. For days when his life was good. When he was blessed. Having lost everything, Job was in misery. Terrors overwhelmed him. His days were marked by suffering.
Why? For what purpose? Was Job now abandoned? Cast aside? A righteous man cut off?
Then the Lord answered Job out of the storm, saying,
Who is this that darkens My counsel with words without knowledge? Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer Me. Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone — while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy? Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb, when I made the clouds its garment and wrapped it in thick darkness, when I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place, when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt’? Have you ever given orders to the morning, or shown the dawn its place?
Can you bind the beautiful Pleiades? Can you loose the cords of Orion? Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons or lead out the Bear with its cubs?
Do you send the lightening bolts on their way? Do they report to you, ‘Here we are’?
Do you know when the mountain goats give birth? Do you watch when the doe bears her fawn?
Do you give the horse his strength or clothe his neck with a flowing mane?
Does the hawk take flight by your wisdom and spread his wings toward the south? Does the eagle soar at your command and build his nest on high?
Will the one who contends with the Almighty correct him?”
And so, at the end of a tough day — when I am weary or disappointed, weak or doubting — I remember the Creator’s Words to Job. They are His Words to me as well.
They are my comfort in the storms of life.
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