This should have been a confession uttered long ago, but I kept it locked up and hoped that God turned a blind eye or was too busy with the orphans to notice.
I didn’t notice that I had this problem, this deep sin, this ugliness inside of me until I watched the geese outside my window today.
Job 38:4-7 Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. 5 Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? 6 On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone— 7 while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?
Friend, there could have been fifty or one hundred of them out there. They were so still, standing on the grass faded tan under the winter sky. The ground frozen over, the cold that my bones hate. The ground they waddled on was white just last week, being protected by a trillion drops of water, crystallized by the cold. This morning the cloudy sky shone gray then white as the sun came up over this prairie.
And I read in Job 38, as I drank my coffee, bored with it all. And the Lord asked me
“What is the way to the abode of light?
And where does darkness reside?
Can you take them to their places?
Do you know the paths to their dwellings?
And I couldn’t answer Him. Because I didn’t know. I know nothing about light and dark and how to take them where they need to go so they aren’t even a moment late each day.
And my sin was revealed to me. I was suddenly so convicted by my awelessness. I don’t know where I left it or even the last time I had it. Was it last week? Who was I to think I had the right, the privilege to be bored? By His creation and this day-to-day that He created? Who was I to think He didn’t notice?
I made You promises a thousand times I tried to hear from Heaven But I talked the whole time I think I made You too small I never feared You at all, no If You touched my face would I know You? Looked into my eyes could I behold You? What do I know of You Who spoke me into motion? Where have I even stood But the shore along Your ocean? Are You fire, are You fury? Are You sacred, are You beautiful? What do I know, what do I know of Holy? Picture Credit: Cassi Warner
And then the geese out my window. All of the sudden, they all look in the same direction. Maybe it was a rabbit or the wind, but I hadn’t heard a thing. And it’s a Tuesday and it’s popular thought that nothing really happens on a Tuesday so I was stumped. But just like that, they flew off, their wings vibrating the air twenty feet above my head.
But they all knew, there was something that had to be left behind or something they had to get to, and they all became aware of it at the same time. Whatever it was, they were all in on it, except me. And I unlocked the back door, opened it and went down the steps to see where they were going.
Job 38: 8-111 Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb, 9 when I made the clouds its garment and wrapped it in thick darkness, 10 when I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place, 11 when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt’?
And I looked up at the sky. They were gone.
And I continued to read and the Lord asked me,
Can you raise your voice to the clouds
and cover yourself with a flood of water?
Do you send the lightning bolts on their way?
Do they report to you, ‘Here we are’?
or gives the rooster understanding?
Who has the wisdom to count the clouds?
Who can tip over the water jars of the heavens
and the clods of earth stick together?
I had no answer to each of His questions. If it were not God who asked, I probably would have lied and faked an answer, as we do. But I have heard enough sermons in my life to know that God knows when I’m faking it.
And I stood there in the cold and looked up at the not-birds. I looked at a clouded sky and I thought about the stars that lay beyond. For a moment I was taken back to my childhood bed where I would lay and stare at the stars and marvel at how far away they were and how big and hot and bright they must be up-close.
And I read on, and the Lord asked me,
Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades?
Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons
or lead out the Bear with its cubs?
Do you know the laws of the heavens?
Can you set up God’s dominion over the earth?
And He got me again. I could only answer no, again. I don’t control the stars. My problems are small comparatively speaking. I worry about my car making it through the end of the year and how the Pastor Husband’s anxiety is doing. I can’t be trusted to worry about the stars. It’s all a matter of perspective, I guess.
And then I read on. And it’s this next verse that stops my breath. To be honest, it’s been hours and I haven’t quite found it yet.
He asks me, and I sense that He’s leaned in and is whispering this to me, face to Face.
Will the wild ox consent to serve you?
Will it stay by your manger at night?
And the tears come because I truly am in awe. Job was probably written 1000 years before God left His throne and walked among us, on this earth He created. Yet here in these 8 words, we have the sweetest foreshadowing. No, I can’t tame the wild ox. It will not stand guard for me.
He knew He was coming. And as He lay in that manger, the wild ox stood next to Him, watching over Him and His mama and His daddy as He slept. He knew this was to be 1000 years before the magi or Herod or Mary or the Shepherds.
And I’m forever convicted by my awelessness.
Today may we fill our purpose to be loved by You and be in awe of You, Lord.
Job 39:9-12 Will the wild ox consent to serve you? Will it stay by your manger at night? 10 Can you hold it to the furrow with a harness? Will it till the valleys behind you? 11 Will you rely on it for its great strength? Will you leave your heavy work to it? 12 Can you trust it to haul in your grain and bring it to your threshing floor?
What about you? What in His creation makes you in awe of the Creator? Or are you struggling with awelessness yourself? How do you get it back?