Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind and said: “Who is this who obscures My counsel by words without knowledge? Now brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall inform Me. Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding. Who fixed its measurements? Surely you know! -Job 38:1-5
After writing in my journal this morning I was reading AW Tozer. He was talking about being in awe of God and how that must certainly mean that we can never come to the place where we have God all figured out. There is a mystery to Him that is so profoundly otherworldly, and so separate from fallen humanity, that it is vain conceit to think that we can tie everything up in a bow and have an answer to every spiritual question in life.
Reading what Tozer had to say was very humbling to me because the reality is that we all have a tendency to think that we have it all figured out. We have God figured out, we have church figured out, we have spiritual things figured out. But the truth is, we really don’t!
Other people have their box, and I have my box. Most people think that their box is the right box otherwise they wouldn’t be in it!
I’m very passionate about my convictions but it would do me good to remember that I could be perfectly convinced of something and be perfectly wrong.
I don’t have the Almighty figured out.
Though we have the Word of God, there is nevertheless, a vast mystery about Him, and an incomprehensible lack of understanding about the way He does things.
That should put me in fear and awe. It should also humble me. It should make me slow to speak and quick to listen to others. It should teach me not to be spouting off my own opinions as if they are Divine Fiat.
Go low my friend, go low! You don’t want to have to find yourself being humbled by the Most High if He should, perchance, prove you wrong about your opinions.
He is, after all, the Most High.
He doesn’t have to explain Himself and He certainly doesn’t have to fit Himself into anybody’s box, including mine.