January 26, 2013 Humbling, Isn't It?

Read Job 42 Humbling, Isn’t It? 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 what I want.” 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 humble 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. We can easily do that, can’t we when there seems to be no response to our prayers. After all, he teaches us to pray. Even commands we have faith in him to deliver what we want into our lives. But as we pray, “Our Father in heaven, holy be your name…your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” we are acknowledging God as our sovereign Father, and we are praying his Kingdom purposes to unfold into our lives from his perfect presence. Yet we don’t trust God’s answers to our prayers. 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 required complete humility. They learned they had to give up every sense of their own will for the Father’s will. Be humble before God. Live in praise that the Sovereign Lord, cares for you so deeply “he humbled himself and became obedient to death” (Phil 2:8). It’s True! How humbling it is to know God humbled himself to death for you.