How can a mortal be righteous before God?
Every day we're reading or listening to part of the Bible together and sharing thoughts with you. Today it’s Bern Leckie:
What did I like about today’s passage?
We are reading most of this book with a HEALTH WARNING that there is much deliberately bad theology tossed into the word salad. We should be picky as we eat.
I really like that Job’s advisors seem to be running out of steam. They’ve failed to convict Job of wrongdoing he has not done, and Bildad drops his mic (but not in a good way) with his conclusion that people are “maggots” who cannot possibly be pure before God. Maybe he was only thinking about what people could do by their own effort. He forgot about God’s grace, power, love and promises.
Job remembers God’s power and seems to realise something is missing from his understanding but can’t identify what it is. At least he has hope and he knows there is wisdom which can help him.
But where is it? It’s hidden and only “God understands the way to it.” Are we about to see a breakthrough?
What did it show me about Father God, Jesus or the Holy Spirit?
God knows how much we do not know, better than we know ourselves. But while we frustrate ourselves and each other by acting as if we have got our heads around everything, God encourages us to reach out to him when we know that there are things we do not know and cannot do by ourselves.
It turns out that the things which add the most value to our lives come through relationship with God. He does not offer them in exchange for our riches or efforts. Instead, he wants us to turn away from evil and towards him, swapping self-centred life for God-centred life. Then we can lose our delusions that we understand everything from our own points of view, but gain wisdom, starting to see everything from the viewpoint of the universe’s creator.
What am I going to do differently as a result?
I value learning and growing understanding a great deal. I’m also finding out more about teaching thanks to good relationships with Noah’s school and a new job (like millions of other parents) as a home tutor during lockdown! I believe that God gave us brains which are used well when we seek understanding through science. But our wisdom is not complete without knowing God directly – otherwise, how can we know what to do with knowledge? So we’ll spend some more time praying and enjoying God’s company this term at home.
Who am I going to share this with?
We’ll share what we are doing, how and why with Noah’s teacher and other staff, and I’m looking to share more about how people are home schooling in a new podcast soon. Look out for it (and let me know if you would like to be in it!)