Job 39 | Wayfarer

“Does the hawk take flight by your wisdom
and spread its wings toward the south?”
Job 39:26 (NIV)

Jesus occasionally and famously answered questions with questions. When His enemies were trying to trap Him into saying something they could use against Him, He turned the tables and asked them whether his cousin, John the Baptist, baptized people with divine authority or if he was a crackpot who should be ignored. It was a lose-lose question for the powerful religious leaders. If they said John baptized with divine authority the crowds would ask why it was that they were so critical and dismissive of the John. If they said the popular desert preacher was a crackpot they would take a huge hit in their public approval ratings. Jesus’ enemies refused to answer His question, so He refused to answer theirs.

God has two discourses in which He speaks. to Job out of the storm. In each, God answers Job with rhetorical questions that Job could never answer. He begins with questions of the universe, the spirit realm, and the cosmology of the earth then switches to questions about the animal kingdom. With each question, Job’s ignorance and lack of knowledge is apparent, as is God’s power and sovereignty.

Like Jesus with His accusers, God refuses to answer Job’s questions unless Job can answer His. Job’s suffering is never mentioned. There is not even an acknowledgment of Job’s circumstances, his mock trial, his prosecutorial examination. or his “signed defense.”

As I pondered this in the quiet this morning, I heard the echo of God’s words through the prophet Isaiah:

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
    neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the Lord.
“As the heavens are higher than the earth,
    so are my ways higher than your ways
    and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

A few chapters back, I posited that when it comes to others lives and troubles “we don’t know what we don’t know.” Now God takes that reality to the highest level. I am ignorant of God’s designs and purposes. My finite mind can’t fully grasp the infinity of God’s power. Yet, as a disciple of Jesus I am assured in the Great Story that, ultimately and eternally, all things work together for good.

I can have faith in God and His promise that there is a plan and purpose into which my life and my troubles are woven.

Like Jesus’ enemies, I can also choose to walk away.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

A photo I snapped of the eagle soaring over our cove a few summers ago.

Does the eagle soar at your command
and build its nest on high?
Job 39:27 (NIV)

When I was a child in elementary school, I remember studying the American bald eagle and how near they were to extinction. I have memories of thinking that I might never see one and how sad that would be. The few that did exist, I was told, were in the wild of Alaska or the Rocky Mountains far from my home on the rolling plains of Iowa.

Much to my joy, bald eagles have become a fairly common sight near my Iowa hometown in recent years, though the sight never ceases to stop me in my tracks and fill me with wonder. Conservation efforts have worked. At our place on Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri there are eagles which nest in the back of our cove. There is nothing quite like the sight of that giant raptor with it’s snowy white head and tail soaring right over you. This summer we even had the treat of watching a young eagle dive into the shallow water at the back of the cove over and over and over again learning to catch fish.

God’s questioning of Job in today’s chapter focuses on His sovereignty and care over creation. I find it interesting that creation has a natural order to it which God set into motion. It fascinates me how the animal and plant kingdoms operate in symbiotic relationships and function amazingly well in the propagation of life and the natural environment. Humanity has a way of coming along and messing things up more often than not. I would argue that it is a consequence of the Fall, and perhaps that is part of God’s point to Job.

I’m looking forward to seeing the eagles again at the lake this summer. They remind me that there is hope of redemption, even at the brink of extinction. A eucatastrophe in nature. This summer there will be an added layer of meaning as I remember God’s questioning of Job, and me.