No Win

“For he is not a man, as I am, that I should answer him, and we should come together in judgment.” (Job 9:32 AV)

You got that right, Job!  I know I have stated this before, but in dramatic times of stress, we tend to utter things that are very true and extremely pertinent, yet we do not realize what we have just said.  Just a few verses earlier, Job stated God is stronger than he so to go to Him and demand an answer would not work.  He also admitted God is infinitely wiser than he and to seek a defense from God would be to wrestle with an intellectual giant.  His suggested application in the verse above and the one to which I just referred is, God is God and there is nothing we can do about His sovereign plan.  He does not owe us an explanation and our best course of action is to give God the benefit of the doubt and yield to the circumstances of life which He deems best.

My father was a brilliant man.  He earned two Masters degrees and was close to earning a doctorate.  He literally was a rocket scientist for the US Army.  He and my brother completely rewrote the computer system for a major university’s school of dentistry.  My father subscribed to Time/Life magazine and had a significant library.  One of his collections was a DIY home repair and remodel collection.  They would send you a book every month or so.  These books covered everything from plumbing and electrical to landscaping and home remodeling.  It was by these books that he completely remodeled a 175-year-old farmhouse from top to bottom.  As a young college-aged man, he wanted to learn how to play the guitar.  He never took lessons.  He read some books and learned to play extremely proficiently.  He was no rock star, but he was a professional who was hired out for several gigs.  If there was such a thing, my father was a true Renaissance man.  There was little he could not do if he grabbed a book and read about it.  He was an accomplished outdoorsman, a stamp collector, and a bit of an artist.  He towered above us not because he was a particularly large or muscular man, but because he was a giant on the inside.

I share all this with you so that you can understand how futile it was to argue anything with him.  As a child or teenager; even as a young adult; trying to prove him wrong was a task greater than slaying Goliath.  He knew much about everything.  His reference point when approaching him for an intellectual duel was, “I’m right, you’re wrong.  What was it you wanted to talk about?”  As a young person, that was really frustrating.  Not because he was arrogant.  Rather, because his statement was a true one.  Trying to bout in the arena of wits with my father was not a smart move.  It was best to ask a question, hear the answer, and move on.

This is what happens when we lock horns with God.  We lose!  At least when I got older and smarter, I could hold my own with my Dad.  But never with God.  He is infinitely wiser and all-powerful.  The best thing we can do is humbly ask for insight while we also accept His perfect will.  Giving God the benefit of the doubt is the smartest tack here.  Demanding of God anything is a fool’s errand.  Job had to work out all his emotions.  So let’s take it easy on him.  He has more on his plate than most will ever have.  The statement above was the answer to his issue.  It just took him a while to accept that.  When he did, the LORD changed his situation.  May we learn to do the same.