Please Don’t Ground Me!

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  “Why do you confuse the issue? Why do you talk without knowing what you’re talking about? Pull yourself together, Job! Up on your feet! Stand tall! I have some questions for you, and I want some straight answers.”
- Job 38:2-3 The Message -
It doesn’t take much to imagine God pointing an angry finger at us. We know we are imperfect. We know we mess up. We know we miss the mark to God’s standards so much of the time. Sometimes it is so easy to imagine that we cannot do anything to make God happy. Perhaps much like our experience of angry parents, God just seems to be making our life as hard and inconvenient as possible.

Maybe this is why I love the book of Job. Job is a person who has a whole book of the Bible written about his life. He literally loses everything – including his wealth, his health & even his family! Then his friends come and try to cheer him up but just end up getting into an argument with Job about what Job might have done wrong to tick off God. All the while, Job just pleads for God to come show up and fix his life. Job starts out very humble and respectful of God but as he continues to argue with his friends Job gets entitled and almost thinks God deserves to give him an apology.

God does show up! Yet true to how God works, God does not come in and always do as we expect or ask. These two verses are the opening statement in which God proceeds to ask Job what on earth he knows. As God of the cosmos and God of all creation and living things, God knows exactly what God is doing. Job on the other hand has no idea what it is like to be God. In probably the wisest moment of Job’s life, after God asks Job a bunch of questions and desires from Job some straight answers Job puts his hand over his mouth and admits he knows nothing he can say will be adequate.

From this re-found purposed place of humility and respect, Job gives God something to work with. Once Job checks his ego and gets rid of the idea of what he thought he deserved, God is able to be the incredible heavenly parent for Job that can bring transformation and joy back into his life. Instead of negotiating or arguing with what feels like a heavenly grounding when life goes bad, we are called to remind ourselves of who God is and let ourselves trust that God is always in the business of turning what was meant for bad into good! 

To Read More: Job 38:1-7 & 34-41, Genesis 50:19-20, Psalm 104:1-9

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