Job 38: God Responds

Job 38:12-13 "Have you ever given orders to the morning, or shown the dawn its place, that it might take the earth by the edges and shake the wicked out of it?"

In the 38th chapter of Job, God responds to this whole wild situation. Instead of answering any of the questions, or affirming or disparaging any of the advice of Job's friends, God asks a series of impossible questions. These don't appear to be questions asked with any intent of answer or discussion. These are questions intended to prove a point, and that is to demonstrate God's infinite power and ineffable character.

What is interesting aand compelling about these questions, is that this could be a sequel to the creation story. 

Leading off, God asks about where Job was when he laid the foundation of earth, and measured it off. He didn't just randomly form a ball of raw materials and set it in motion. He purposefully imagined and created the earth at the exact and proper size He intended. With God, I think I perceive that he just spoke and everything just happened, and stuff went wherever it went. This is absolutely false. God isn't that laid back. Its amazing to think about the stuff we take for granted was created with the utmost care for us to wander around on. I'm no environmentalist, but it makes me think more about how I care for the earth and it's creatures. How could I litter? How could I just kill an animal for no reason? And consider the reaction of the morning stars (whatever that means) and the angels shouting for joy! They were cheering God on. Just being in God's presence would have been amazing on it's own, but this, his creation, elicited a joyful shout that would have been overwhelming to hear.

When I read about the sea and the snow and the hail and the thunderstorms and everything, its even more incredible what God controls and oversees. The light, the dark, the sun, the stars...all of these things follow God's orders and require God's conscious involvement just to function. These things we consider "nature," are beholden to the supernatural guidance. None of these phenomena occur on their own without God's specific instruction and orders, if I am to believe what He says here in chapter 38. Inherent in this idea are that these phenomena are not deities. The valleys and the mountains have their formation explained by erosion and the like, but it is God's potter's hand that forms the seemingly random crags and caves.

In verse 17, God asks about the gates of death, and gates of the shadow of death. Maybe I'm not supposed to know anything other than life and death itself belong to God. No one or thing lives a moment longer or dies a second sooner than God intends. This is astounding in view of the things that experience life and death.

Everything rises and falls at God's command. And that's quite revealing to someone who thinks God allows a certain amount of sketch or randomness. Tree limbs and land formations look chaotic and disorderly. These things don't exist in God's realm. Everything lies and grows and forms exactly as God means it to. Obsessive attention to detail? More likely infinite power over absolutely everything.