Daily Devotion

Selection Taken From:
A Year with God by R.P. Nettelhorst

Make this the year you let God's Word "dwell in you richly"---and marvel at the results! Each entry in this 365-day devotional features Scripture verses in which God speaks, accompanied by insights and applications to enhance your understanding. Learn what God says about hope and fear; perseverance and quitting; companionship and isolation; and more! 384 pages, softcover from Nelson, Copyright 2010.

What Are You Worried About?

Can you arrange stars in groups such as Orion and the Pleiades?
Do you control the stars or set in place the Big Dipper and the Little Dipper?
Do you know the laws that govern the heavens, and can you make them rule the earth?
Can you order the clouds to send a downpour, or will lightning flash at your command?
Did you teach birds to know that rain or floods are on their way?
Can you count the clouds or pour out their water on the dry, lumpy soil?
When lions are hungry, do you help them hunt?
Do you send an animal into their den?
And when starving young ravens cry out to me for food, do you satisfy their hunger? - Job 38:31-41 CEV

When God asks a question, it isn't because he doesn't know the answer. Job had lost his family, his livelihood, and his health. He wondered why it had all happened, and his question made him doubt God's goodness. God responded by asking him other questions that Job wouldn't have answers for. An interesting question God asked Job was "Do you know the laws that govern the heavens and can you make them rule the earth?" When God asked Job the question, Job had no answer. Today, Job would have probably answered yes, thanks to the physicist Sir Isaac Newton. Newton discovered that the laws of nature are universal. What is true in the heavens is true on the earth. The falling of an apple is caused by the same force that keeps the moon swinging around the earth and the earth swinging around the sun.

But God's point was not to quiz Job about physics. God wanted Job to realize there was no difference between the questions God was asking and the question Job was asking. Not knowing how to arrange the stars didn't keep Job up at night questioning God's goodness. So why did not knowing why he suffered make him do that?

Job couldn't control the clouds. He didn't understand how they worked. He couldn't take care of hungry birds. But God does understand. God can take care of them. God's real point for Job was simple: "Why are you so worried and afraid? You don't know much and can't do much. But I do. I'm God, so relax."