Pondering Job in a Pandemic – Chapter 26

by  on 

Job’s three friends who we were introduced to at the end of chapter 2 have finished their attempts to persuade Job. In chapter 26 Job begins his concluding remarks. This speech will stretch all the way through chapter 31.

Here at the beginning of his concluding remarks, Job reflects on the unsearchable majesty of God.

Job makes observations, primarily from creation, asserts God’s majesty, even suggesting mystery.

From our perspective and finite understanding of creation, the world around us and history there is mystery in God’s majestic authority.

Of course the Scriptures tell us this elsewhere as well.

Deuteronomy 29:29 – The hidden things belong to the Lord our God, but the revealed things belong to us and our children forever, so that we may follow all the words of this law.

Isaiah 55:9 – For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Of course Psalm 8 also comes to mind:

O Lord, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.
Out of the mouth of babies and infants,
you have established strength because of your foes,
to still the enemy and the avenger.
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
what is man that you are mindful of him,
and the son of man that you care for him?
Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings
and crowned him with glory and honor.
You have given him dominion over the works of your hands;
you have put all things under his feet,
all sheep and oxen,
and also the beasts of the field,
the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea,
whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
O Lord, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!

Psalm 8

One thing that times of trail and suffering do is they weed out trite, small, cliche ideas and thoughts of God. A small god is not worth considering when everything in our life makes no sense and we have more questions than answers.

Of course, God doesn’t change. He is always Who He is. It is we who need to more fully grasp his glory, majesty, power, etc. We’ve sadly begun looking at God like He is small. Like looking at the stars at night and thinking they are small flecks. We use a telescope to helps us grasp that they are, in fact, many times larger than the whole earth.

We must look with the eyes of our heart, informed by God’s Word and God’s creation and be captivated by the unsearchable majesty of God.

Nothing else will do when everything around us seems so big and incomprehensible than an accurate view of God – for He is bigger!

Soli Deo Gloria

Items to focus your faith: