April 29, 2011 Humbling, Isn't It?

Humbling, Isn’t It?
Read Job 42

Job 42:5-6 My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. 6 Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.

WHEN WE live within the normal boundaries of our lives, it is easy to say to God, “This is what I want. You’re a loving God. I’m sure you are happy to give me my desires.
For many pages Job has been saying something like that to God. Job seems to be justified in his despair. After all, he was blameless before God. He was blameless, that is, until he began to question God and try to claim he was right and God was wrong.
Job wasn’t willing to submit himself to the one who “gives orders to the morning, or shows the dawn its place” (Job 38:12). He was judging the One who judges.
So often in the Christian culture, we are disappointed when God does not answer our prayers in just the way we want them answered. But the model prayer, the Lord’s Prayer, says something very different. It says, “your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, and give us today our daily bread”
The prayer is focused on God’s Kingdom purpose to unfold into our lives and to pray for what we need.
Yes, we judge God when he delivers something other than what we ordered. What Job, God’s prophets, and Jesus’ disciples came to understand, was that following God was total humility to go before him.
Be humble before God. Live in praise that the one who has “given orders to the morning, or shown the dawn its place” (Job 38:12) cares for you so deeply “he humbled himself and became obedient to death” (Phil 2:8).


Pause and Consider: how humbling it is to know God loves you.