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#DailyDevotion Would You Be Able To Answer God?

#DailyDevotion Would You Be Able To Answer God?

Job 38:1–11 Proper 7

Then the LORD answered Job out of the storm: 2“Who is this that obscures My purpose by talking without understanding? 3Prepare yourself like a man: I will ask you, and you show Me. 4Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me if you understand. 5Who determined its measurements – you surely know! Or who stretched a measuring line over it? 6On what were the sockets of its pillars placed; who laid its cornerstone, 7while the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy? 8Who shut in the sea with doors when it broke through and came out of the womb, 9when I made the clouds its garment and dark clouds its baby clothes; 10when I prescribed its shoreline, and set up bars and doors, 11and said, ‘You may come this far but no farther, here your surging waves will stop?’”

For thirty something chapters Job and his friends were wishing God would come down and solve their problem, i.e. give an answer to why Job was suffering. Well, unexpectedly, the LORD gives an answer to their demands for why Job is suffering. From the answer we get from the LORD here, it seems to be, “It’s none of your business. You’re not in charge here.” At least, that is what it seems like to me.

So what is the LORD’s answer? Well it’s a series of questions. “Who is this that obscures My purpose by talking without understanding?” We simply do not and cannot have the understanding our maker has in his purposes. We will certainly muddle things up as we try to answer questions the LORD has not revealed the answer to. God then asks a series of questions which only he himself would know, or rather he is ithe answer to them.

It is the LORD who determined the earth’s measurement. It is the LORD who placed it securely in its orbit around the sun which is in the Goldielock zone. It is the LORD who keeps the sea back and prescribed the shoreline and keeps the waves from flooding. Well if he did all that, and you weren’t even there to witness it and sing the LORD’s praises with the angels, what makes you think you can demand anything from the LORD?

Yet the LORD is patient with us. He gives us some understanding of how things work. Yet, he does not always reveal to us his purpose in everything. The one thing he often doesn’t answer, at least not always how we would like to receive what he says, is why do we suffer. But in a sense, he has done that as well. We suffer because we are sinners in a sinful world. It is sin that brings suffering into the world. Even if we do repent there is the temporal consequences of our sin. Other people sinning bring misery into our lives. There is the brokenness of sin in our flesh which causes our flesh to fail. There are no good people, no, not one, not eve Job in all his righteousness.

Yet there is one good man. His name is Jesus Christ of Nazareth. He is good because he is God. The best answer suffering is displayed on his cross. Jesus took our suffering upon himself on the cross and sanctified it. On the cross, our suffering becomes the means by which we are prepared for eternal glory. It develops in us perseverance, character and hope. It keeps us looking to God for relief in the resurrection.

Heavenly Father, you are our maker and all things happen according to your plan. Help to humbly accept your will and grow in faith. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

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Rev. Guillaume J. S. Williams, Sr.

The Reverend Guillaume Williams is the Pastor of Hope Lutheran Chapel of Osage Beach, Missouri. His pastoral ministry with Hope began in 2005 where he preaches the Christ crucified.

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