I catch myself day after day in a million little arguments and conversations on loop in my mind. I'm beating out the reasons, the justifications, and the formulas of all that is taking place, both in the world around me and within. I begin to feel quite accomplished in my observations and insight until something much bigger than me quiets me. There's nothing like creation to remind you of how little you know.
I'm reading through Job in Scripture. He was a man wrecked by unimaginable circumstances and (remarkably) by the words of those closest to him, the most intelligent of men. Job, who after running what he sees through every formula and reason in his genius, could only conclude that God had caused this. All of it. This expended man trusted that somehow the Almighty was justified and right in what He had superintended. Then God spoke. He never told him the why, but confirmed Job was correct in his conclusion. God's ways were bound up in His wisdom and power which far exceeded anything that righteous man could see. It was just as David declared, "If I say, 'Surely the darkness will overwhelm me, and the light around me will be night,' even the darkness is not dark to You, and the night is as bright as the day." God pulled Job away from his consuming analysis and created a show of His creation. He asked Job to explain the bizarre and the untamable, to which he had no answer. If those animals could not be controlled by man, how must one view their Creator? If those creatures and their actions could not be explained, how is it that man attempts to write God's ways within a formula? And still, if those creatures are both grand and awesome and always held together outside of man's power and sight, could not man trust the ways of the Almighty? "Behold, these are the fringes of His ways; and how faint a word we hear of Him! But His mighty thunder, who can understand?" Again, I took it to canvas. The hem of His garment, the fringes of His ways — depicted as the always moving gold and red — are all that I can touch and see through the worn blue and shadow of my experience. What I know of Him is something, but it is not everything. What I can see is just light peeking through a curtain. Any reason I can grasp is just the fringes of His ways. It is His delight that I see what I see, but it is His prerogative and pleasure to work a grand work on the other side of the veil. Comments are closed.
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WORKS ADDED
February 2024
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