Fri., Feb. 25/22
A 2012 survey by the retailer Littlewoods of 1,000 mothers with children between the ages of 2 and 10 found children ask their mom an average of 228 questions daily! Girls, age 4, ask the most: 390, and boys, age 9, ask the least: 144. Most parents have experienced the unending ‘Why’ questions that kick in around age 3. Answering these is like defining pi! “Why is the sky blue?“ “Why do you go to work?” “Why do you need money?” “Why do you peel potatoes?” “Why does the kitty say ‘meow’?” “Why can’t the birds talk?” “Why can’t people fly?” — That’s about the first 15 minutes worth of a very long day!
In the 9th chapter, Job asks three most fundamental questions: “How can mere mortals prove their innocence before God?” (v.2), “Who has resisted Him and come out unscathed?” (v.4), and “Who can say to Him, ‘What are you doing?’” (v. 12). In short these questions boil down to
- How can I accept my guilt and become righteous?
- How can I dispute my guilt and be judged innocent?
- How can I dispute God’s right to judge?
As Job learned, God’s ultimate answer to all questions is this: “I am.”
Now it takes some head twisting by us mortals to see how this is any answer at all. But it truly is… and it truly is the very best answer possible, though it leaves us mortals (like Job) standing gape-mouthed and awed by the new and true perspective it demands.
God is loving, kind, just, merciful, holy and many more things. And He exists holding all these things in perfect unity and balance without being at cross purposes. While God’s justice demands an accounting for sin, and while His mercy and grace make possible forgiveness, His Holiness cannot accept any blemish into His presence. Christ’s sacrificial death and resurrection satisfies all aspects of the divinity. “I am” asserts the perfect and simultaneous expression of all of these things in His One Tri-unity. “I am” is the best, most comprehensible answer to what we call “the problem of evil,” to our questions about origin and the meaning of life, and the eternities to follow.
If I’ve lost you in the above paragraph, try this: “God is too kind to do anything cruel, too wise to make a mistake, and too deep to explain Himself.”
God is God, not us. Ours is the great privilege of becoming His children through faith… trusting in His Being…. honoring Him forever, and calling to Him as children, “Abba, Father.”
Acknowledging the truth of “I am” is the dynamic that makes this transformation possible.
Press on…
Pressing on... 