Job CCCXXVIII

 Job 39:1-4, “Do you know the time when the wild mountain goats bear young? Or can you mark when the deer gives birth? Can you number the months that they fulfill? Or do you know the time when they bear young? They bow down, they bring forth their young, they deliver their offspring. Their young ones are healthy, they grow strong with grain; they depart and do not return to them.”

We tend not to notice when everything is going right. We turn on the faucet, and there’s running water; we flip a switch, and the lights come on; we turn a key, and the car starts; and for the most part it occurs so regularly that we take it for granted. Then something goes awry, and instead of running water there’s a gurgling sound, like the rumbling of one’s stomach too long without food, instead of light, darkness remains even though we’ve flicked the switch on and off three or four times to make sure, and instead of the rumbling of an engine, there’s the dreaded chirp or chime informing us we’re not going anywhere for the foreseeable future.

Man downplays the complexity of God’s creation because it is so finely tuned, a billion, billion moving pieces all working in perfect synchronicity, that there’s never a glitch, there’s never something that goes awry, and we come to assume that it’s no great feat.

God picks a couple of His creations at random and compels Job to ponder all the detail that went into something as common as when the mountain goats bear their young, or when the deer gives birth. To us, absent pondering on the subject for longer than it takes to read the verse, it may seem like no great thing, yet when you drill down and realize there is a specified and distinct timetable for when these things must occur if the offspring have a chance at survival, that one month earlier or later would mean the eradication of the entire species, the vast web of necessary events to occur at specific times, is something our frail minds can’t readily grasp.

Some years ago I saw an art display where someone had built a miniature scale of the Vatican out of toothpicks. All told, it was about six feet wide, four feet deep, and a good five feet in height. The tag on the front said it took over 800 hours to build, and included some horrendous amount of toothpicks, well into the tens of thousands. One could either roll their eyes, shrug their shoulders, and move on, or take a breath to contemplate the dedication, the attention to detail, and the effort it took to put it all together.

Compared to God’s creation, that art exhibit is akin to stacking three building blocks atop each other. Not at all impressive, or worthy of mention, because what it takes to keep various organisms, animals, birds of the air, fish of the sea, plant life, trees, ecosystems, and all the other countless things going, viable, and alive, is unfathomable.

Just because God makes it look easy, it doesn’t mean that it is.

If you happen to have children, you know that consistency is key. It has become my wife’s de facto motto, and she keeps to the rigid schedule of a specific bedtime, among other things. Although you can’t make children sleep longer than they need, even if they wake up, they can’t get out of bed until seven, no matter how much they might want to. By the time they come downstairs, breakfast is started, if not ready, and their list of chores is already up on the fridge, held in place by a happy face magnet.

Sure, there’s grumbling from time to time; they are kids after all, and being the sassier of the two, the young one rolls her eyes and whispers some variation of I wonder if prison is this bad to her sister when they see that they have to fold clothes, vacuum, do dishes, or whatever else is on the list for that day. Even so, they do what they’re supposed to, and once the chores get done, then they have free time, which usually consists of playing their instruments, drawing, painting, or making copious amounts of bracelets for no one in particular.

Then the day came that Mom had to go away on business for a couple of days, and Dad was left in charge. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not as strict as my wife. Perhaps it’s because I’m a girl dad, or because the puppy eyes still have an effect on me, but I tend to let things slide a bit more than my wife ever would, and wouldn’t you know it, the girls caught on to that particular weakness since they were in diapers.

The first night my wife was away, they asked if they could stay up late to read, and since I saw no harm in it, I said yes. Since they’d gotten to bed a couple of hours past their bedtime, they woke up a couple of hours later than they normally would have, fully expecting to have a hot and ready breakfast waiting for them. They were both hungry, and after asking what was for breakfast, I offered them buttered toast and warm milk.

“But mom makes us omelets and smoothies, pancakes and waffles in the morning,” the little one chimed in, disappointed by my meager offering, to which I answered, “That’s why you should appreciate mom more for everything she does for you, because all I’ve got is toast and milk.”

We ended up settling on hard-boiled eggs and sliced cheese, but the point remains valid: there is a myriad of things we take for granted on any given day, from our health to the roof over our heads, to the birds chirping in the trees and the sun shining on our faces. The unregenerate, those without knowledge or understanding of God, assume all these things are naturally occurring, something they’re entitled to, without sparing a thought to the reality that there is an unseen hand keeping it all together, making it work, and maintaining it. As those who are His, who belong to Him, who know Him as Lord, King, Master, and Father, His praise should be on our lips every day, grateful and thankful for all that He is and all that He does.  

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.