I'm God, Your Not, Now Deal with It

“I’m God, You're Not--Now Deal with It.”
Job 38-41
“Then the Lord answered Job out of the storm and said, Now gird up your loins like a man; I will ask you, and you instruct Me. Will you really annul My judgment? Will you condemn Me that you may be justified?”

Throughout the book, Job has been asking for an audience with God so that he might bring his complaint. When Job finally gets his opportunity, he quickly discovers that God does not answer to man. The problem with Job was not his obedience to God, nor was his faith in God misguided. The problem is that Job’s God was too small. We fall into the same trap. How does the finite comprehend the infinite? How does mortal man understand an all-powerful God? The answer: By making God finite and understanding God based on our human reason. The great audacity of man is that we think that God is answerable to us. When His word does not fit our perspective, we discredit His word to conform to us. It is the folly of humanity to think that God is answerable to us. The greatest act of irrationality is to conform God to our standards and our thoughts.

God does not answer the questions that Job raised about suffering. Instead, in a series of speeches, God points to His supremacy and power over all creation. God is infinitely wiser, more powerful, and sovereign over the universe than we can imagine. He controls the activity of every part of creation. Instead of attributing creation to the work of God, we attribute it to chance. But creation is infinitely complex, and it testifies to one who created, sustains, and controls its every movement. While in the garden, God gave humanity the task of caring for His creation; however, He still sustains and controls it (38:8-15; 39:1-30). We are powerless in the face of an unrelenting hurricane. We stand in awe at the untamable power of an earthquake. We struggle just to predict the weather, but find ourselves powerless to control it. Yet God is the one who has power overall of all creation. He controls the storm and orchestrates the ebb and flow of creation’s life and existence.    In rapid-fire succession, God questions Job’s understanding of the governing laws of nature. In response, Job finds himself speechless. The quest for scientific discovery reveals nothing more than how little we actually understand about the infinite complexity of the universe. But God not only knows all, He is the one who controls it all (38:15-39:40).

Confronted with infinite power, wisdom, and the nature of God, Job is left silent (40:1-5). God calls Job’s bluff. Job had been questioning God’s moral laws and fairness, so in 40:6-14, God challenges Job to give it a go if he thinks he can do better. All we have to do is look at the world today, and we see the result of what happens when humanity thinks it can throw off the constraint of God’s moral law and pursue its own. The more we try to determine what is right and wrong, the more the world descends into moral and spiritual chaos. However, God brings moral order out of chaos. In ancient Near Eastern literature, Leviathan was regarded as the sea dragon that controlled the turbulent waters and was symbolic of evil. God reminds Job that He is the one who controls even the Leviathan. He is the one who gives moral order out of the chaos of sin.  

In His narrative, God makes it clear to Job that He is infinite in His power and righteousness. Instead of questioning God when we do not understand, or accusing God of fault when He acts contrary to our perception, we are just humbly to submit to Him. The audacity of man is to think we can question God. A God whom we can understand and control is a God who is too small. Instead of questioning God, we need to just surrender to Him in all things. He is God, we are not; we now need to deal with it!