BOOM, God shakes the room
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?
I can’t help picturing Elihu as a manic street preacher. Not the good kind, but the sort that winds himself up into a little ball of self-righteous rage before exploding into a magnificent monologue which aims to connect people with God but misses spectacularly. Turns out he didn’t get Job and he didn’t get God, but he did get properly into ranting.
I’m also loving that, as he comes to a thunderous crescendo, he feels the heavens opening and believes he is about to get showered with praise. “Well done! Thanks for defending me, young Elihu, I really needed that!” said God. At no time. To anyone. Ever.
Now that God has arrived, what did you think he was going to say?
When I first read this, I was pretty good at school and study and expected my understanding to be recognised, if gently corrected and nudged forwards from time to time. There is nothing gentle about God’s response! It’s a proper “BOOM son, don’t you know who I AM?”
What did it show me about Father God, Jesus or the Holy Spirit?
God wants us to know him. He does not want us to get too comfortable with our ideas about him. We really don’t understand as much as we think we do, or as much as we will after we spend more time with God and put his words, power and love into practice.
Maybe that is why encounters with God can be so surprising. Have you heard the ones about people praying for healing and finding their legs stretch? (We found that at Causeway Coast Vineyard with Mark Marx!) Or the people who got gold fillings out of nowhere? (That made the BBC News in 1999…)
“Hasn’t God got anything better to do?” asked one Christian critic at the time. Maybe he could follow our project plan instead. Look, we’ve mapped it all out with our understanding. God, in his understanding, knows that what we need most is to meet and recognise him.
What am I going to do differently as a result?
I need to spend more time with God, listening to him and expecting him to show up, perhaps in surprising ways. I know he doesn’t need any lessons or defence from me, and I don’t want my limited understanding to make me fail to get him and learn when he acts.
Who am I going to share this with?
People I pray with, especially when we intercede and ask God to do particular things in situations we think we understand. Maybe God will answer our prayers in surprising ways. I know that I don’t want to fall into the trap of thinking I should direct him to act when he can do far more amazing things by simply revealing himself. Then we can believe, and he can direct us.