Overthinking Into Obscurity

"Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?” (Job 38:2 AV)

 

These are the words of God himself to Job.  For thirty-six chapters, Job and his friends were bantering back and forth, attempting to figure out why Job was suffering so much.  They could only agree on one point.  That is, God either caused or allowed these unfortunate circumstances to befall poor Job.  Job contended he did nothing worth meriting his circumstances nor could he understand what possible purpose they may have for him.  He came to the deepest sense of depression when he wished he had never been born.  Job’s friends attempted to place blame on Job for his circumstances.  Either he as sinned, was in sin, or was about to sin.  Those were the false causes which they postulated.  Now, God speaks.  The question above is very intriguing.  It suggests a condition that had escaped my prior readings of this question.  The LORD is suggesting their excessive postulating actually drove them further from knowledge instead of closer to it.  He suggests the more they postulated, the more obscure truth became.  Overthinking it caused Job and his friends more confusion.  Not less.

Overthink, by default, makes assumptions.  These assumptions are rarely correct.  This means, any reasons based on false assumptions only lead to more error.  I am no Daniel Boone when it comes to navigating in the woods.  Even though I know better, it is very easy for me to get turned around in the woods.  Trusting what I do know is surrendered to what I might think is true.  Details are my worst enemy.  I took my pastor turkey hunting on my father’s property.  This property was sixty-six acres of wooded land with a pond on it.  There should have been no way we could have gotten lost.  The property rests atop an elevation.  If I went downhill, in any direction, I was going away from the property.  If I went uphill, I was going towards the property.  Once at the very top, there rests the pond.  Once I found the pond, it was a matter of following the only road that led back to camp.  Yet, there we were.  We had traveled the property setting up and calling for turkeys.  The noon firehouse siren blared so our hunt was over.  Now it was time to return to the car.  Uphill.  That is all I had to do.  However, as I walked through the woods confident of where I was going, we ended up two miles from our trucks on a side road I had never seen.  I actually had to knock on a door to find out where I was relative to where the property was.  What happened?  I overthought it.  Instead of following my instincts of walking uphill, instead, I trusted my eyes which thought they recognized portions of our woods.  Overthinking it got me further from my goal.  Not closer.

The truth of Job’s situation was no matter how much they reasoned, they would never have been able to guess what caused all his trouble.  In fact, the LORD never told him of the event that started it all.  ‘How’ was not relative.  Satan coming and God allowing for a challenge would mean very little to Job.  What was relative to Job was that through Job, God was glorified and Satan embarrassed.  No amount of human reasoning would have ever dreamt a contest between God and Satan was the catalyst for all that befell Job.  What is true is the more they thought about it and pontificated about it, the further down the road of error they progressed.  Much of the time, stopping our thought process and allowing God to speak His mind is the sensible thing to do.  We may not receive all the answers to our questions, but we will receive the answers that we need.  And that is the point to all this.  God spoke!  When he did, all that Job needed was granted.  The first thing to happen was Job and his three friends stopped their discourse.  When they did, then God gave the truth.