Job CCLXX

 Yes, we should be in awe of the God we serve. Yes, we should be humbled by the beauty that surrounds us, a beauty that He spoke into existence, a beauty that makes the greatest works of Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Monet, DaVinci, and Vermeer seem like nothing more than a toddler’s finger-paint art in comparison. Yes, there should be wonder and a humbling delight in the knowledge that we were fearfully and wonderfully made by His hand.

If one were so inclined, they could spend a lifetime plumbing the depths of this one chapter in the book of Job. Every God-inspired revelation regarding His nature, character, and all-encompassing power is so layered in profundity and wide-reaching in its implications that one could readily be stunned into silence as to how a man who lived four thousand years ago could grasp wisdom on this level. The icing on the cake, however, comes toward the latter part of the chapter, wherein, after numerous mind-expanding and reality-shattering revelations, Job says, “these are the mere edges of His ways.”

We haven’t even scratched the surface, never mind plumb the depths. These are the peripheral attributes, the mere edges of His ways. Stunning. Humbling. For a man to so poetically and beautifully encapsulate the attributes, nature, and sovereignty of God, then acknowledge that this was far from a complete rendering of His might, power, and wonder, can do nothing less than humble us into the dust and show us how little we truly know.

Tell me again about the pet dinosaurs and body part rooms in heaven, or perhaps about the bottomless ice cream sundaes. God forgive us!

When taking into account the historical context of Job’s timing, his insights into everything are deeper still. Men used to believe that the earth was supported by four elephants standing on the back of a turtle, yet here comes this man who says that God hung the earth on nothing. Revolutionary statement for its time, to be sure, but much of what Job said about the universe God created has been proven out by science in our modern era. Such things could not have been conceived by the mind of man, but by a God-breathed revelation into the inner workings of the world, the seen and unseen realms alike.

How could Job know that God drew a circular horizon on the face of the waters at the boundary of light and darkness unless God revealed it to him? It’s not as though he could pick up a telephone and call the other side of the world to determine that while it was light where he stood, darkness was all-encompassing beyond what his eyes could see.

When we view the things Job said through the prism of modern invention and understanding, perhaps his statements aren’t quite that impressive. When we acknowledge that he spoke these things four thousand odd years ago, it takes on a whole new level of astonishment.

Some of the things he spoke of remain a mystery to us to this day. Did you know heaven had pillars, and they tremble and are astonished at God’s rebuke? Science can neither prove nor disprove this, but we know it is true not only because the Word of God says it is, but because many of the other statements Job made have been proven factually true in our modern era.

God has both power and authority over all of creation. Can we even fathom what sort of power is required to stir up the sea, or to break up the storm by will alone? Can we even begin to guess at what it implies that God’s hand pierced the fleeing serpent?

All these things, the fathomless, wondrous, glorious things, and yet these are the mere edges of His ways, and how small a whisper we hear of Him.

But sure, let’s bicker endlessly about whether wearing a necktie is a sure sign that you’re headed for hell because it’s pointing down, or if wearing a wedding band is evidence that you have not purged your heart of the desire for silver and gold. Let’s beat each other over the head and denounce each other over tertiary issues that hold no salvific weight, while ignoring the majesty of the God we serve, which is on full display every single day.

Depending on how one views Job’s statement, we either know and understand so little of God as to perceive the mere edges of His ways, or man’s capacity and ability to understand Him are so small and stunted as to make a greater understanding of Him impossible to the human mind. Either way serves to deflate our bloated sense of self, wisdom, and understanding, but one thing is certain: if you seek God, you will find Him. If you knock, He will open. If you desire to know more of Him, He will reveal Himself to you on a deeper and more profound level.

If a man whom God deemed blameless and upright can conclude that what he knows of God are the mere edges of His ways, then no man living or dead can claim that they know God fully, completely, in all His fathomless glory. It may sound good to the ears of the easily impressed when men boast of being all-knowing, but they are empty, baseless boasts that have no anchor to reality.

We hear a small whisper of Him, and some wrongly assume that’s all there is to know of Him. Job insists that there is much beyond the small whisper, all the way to the thunder of His power, and concludes his soliloquy with a rhetorical question: But the thunder of His power, who can understand?

We can understand His love because it was personified in Jesus, we can understand His grace because He plucked us from the darkness and brought us into the light, we can understand His mercy because, as faithless as we are, He still contends with us, but the thunder of His power, who can understand?  

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.