powerless before the storm

“Can you lift up your voice to the clouds,

that a flood of waters may cover you?

Can you send forth lightnings, that they may go

and say to you, ‘Here we are’?”

Job 38:34-35

When the storms come, God knows exactly what He is doing. The winds blow, the rains pour, and the lightning all strikes at His command. I can only observe the power of the storm. God is the One Who directs it. I am powerless before the fury of the storm. God is powerful over the storm.

So when the winds blow, when lightning strikes and thunder crashes and the deluge soaks the world from above, I will remember my place. I am a frail man at the mercy of God Who controls all things... even the path of the storm. By His control the earth is watered and the storm powerfully moves across the landscape, providing nourishing rain, and sometimes rearranging the earth and the lives upon it... all at the Creator’s control. It teaches me to respect the mighty power of God.

“There’s no a plant or flow’r below

but makes Thy glories known;

And clouds arise, and tempests blow,

by order from Thy throne;

While all that borrows life from Thee 

is ever in Thy care;

And everywhere that man can be,

Thou, God, art present there.”

— Isaac Watts

engaging memory for God’s glory

I remember the days of old;

I meditate on all that you have done;

I ponder the work of your hands.

Psalm 143:5

I remember. It is good to remember God and what He is doing in the world. Part of the reason I journal is that in writing down my reflections upon scripture, I remember what God is doing. I can go back to “days of old” (that started in 1981 with my journaling in high school) and can read and remember how far God has taken me. And with 100 journals now on my shelves, that is a lot of “hard evidence” for God’s work in my life. It is good to remember the past work of God.

I meditate. But remembering is just the start. I also need to actively think on just how greatly God has worked in my life. And that involves the process of meditation. I fill my mind with the word of God while remembering what God has done. This is one reason why I choose to frame my journaling around scripture. This is not a diary of events or a calendar agenda that I choose to remember when I journal. It is deeper. These are the thoughts and events and work of God that He is doing to shape my soul! I meditate on scripture and God’s activity in my life to gain an eternal perspective on the here and now.

I ponder. From that scriptural saturation, I can ponder what God has made of this life. And in that insight I am grateful. I should not have the joys, the blessings, the leadership, or the responsibilities I have based solely on my natural talents. These are instead, all gifts from God... blessings that have come from the sanctifying work of His Son, His Spirit, and His Word. I ponder what He has made of this life... I am humbled and worshipful. God gets the glory.

all are naked and exposed

For his eyes are on the ways of a man,

and he sees all his steps.

There is no gloom or deep darkness

where evildoers may hide themselves.

Job 34:21-22

You cannot hide from God. You can reject Him. You can scoff at the thought of His existence. You can try to explain away good and evil as psychological constructs created by humans for social order. You can do all this, and smugly go on about your life, but You will not hide from God Who knows and sees and understands it all. No evil hides from His scrutiny. No righteous deed is unknown. God sees every step and every blunder and every spark of His image in us.

And this all knowing, all seeing God holds us to His standard of holiness. We fall far short. He is thus our judge. This is implicit in the biblical teaching that God sees all our ways and that we cannot hide from Him. It is as early in human history as the first fig leaf reaction hiding in the garden after the Fall. It is as current as “stealth browsing” and VPN’s on our electronics. Yet no matter how much we may cover our tracks, we will all be responsible to God. He holds each human being responsible for his or her actions. This is an inescapable reality according to the scriptures. No one gets a pass on the explanation of every action. No one can do evil and hide it from God, though no other human may ever know.

The New Testament amplification of this truth is Hebrews 4:13: “And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.” And this calls us to hold fast our confession because our Great High Priest, Jesus, know how we struggle with temptation and gives us His mercy and grace so we don’t have to live in the consequences of our sin any longer (Hebrews 4:14-16).

lowly

For though the Lord is high, he regards the lowly,

but the haughty he knows from afar.

Psalm 138:6

God sees the humble

from His heavenly home

and reaches to them

to call them His own

Though on high in heaven

God is moved in love

to reach to the lowly

and lift them above

For a humble sinner

in repentant prayer

is heard by the Savior

and rescued there

But a proud hypocrite

who cannot repent

cannot be saved by God

nor know the Son He sent

Humble faith is what

God always receives

and the needy soul

in Christ believes

why you can’t accuse God

For he is not a man, as I am, that I might answer him,

that we should come to trial together.

Job 9:32

You cannot charge God with any wrong. He is holy and perfect, sovereign and all powerful. And we are fallen, imperfect, broken sinners who suffer in a broken and fallen world. Job knew this and did not resist it. He knew that only God is God. And Job had no power, no priviliges, no joy unless God was its source. He knew this before his great suffering. He affirmed it in his suffering.

The thing about God that we may struggle through the most in hard times is this very observation that God is not a man. He doesn’t fit into human terms and conditions. He cannot be evaluated by human systems. He cannot ever be wrong. He cannot be measured in our ways. Our finite minds are limited when it comes to comprehending Him. All we know of Him, He has revealed to us and we must accept it by faith. Only God is God.

What Job knew in ancient trial is still true today. God is in control. He is God and we are not. And submission by faith to His ways and His will are the best ways for us to be human. The good news is that He has sent His Son to save us from it all. God Himself suffered unimagineable under human injustice, carrying all human sin, so that we might know the love of God in Christ. He may be hard to understand, but God is loving and accessible through Jesus and in Jesus we see God and know Him. And that erases all the vast distance between a holy God and sinful humanity.

thanks to the Lord

Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good,

for his steadfast love endures forever.

Psalm 136:1

Thank You, Lord

for all the good gifts

of my life

for saving my soul

to eternal life

for life and breath

for food and drink

for all I have

I thank You, Lord

Thank You, Lord

for all You are

to my soul

by Your grace

making me whole

for grace and peace

sin’s death release

I thank You, Lord

Thank You, Lord

for Your faithful love

found in Christ

for Jesus

Who is life

for a Savior’s grace

Who always loves us

I thank You, Lord

from reprieve to ruin

For the Lord is restoring the majesty of Jacob

as the majesty of Israel,

for plunderers have plundered them

and ruined their branches.

Nahum 2:2

God would restore His plundered people in the judgment of Assyria and Ninevah would fall. That’s right, the same Ninevah that God spared when they repented at the preaching of Jonah was later judged as described here in the prophetic oracles of Nahum. God was doing this to bring glory to Himself and bring justice for His people. It wasn’t that God changed His mind capriciously between the two different prophets. Rather, it is that Ninevah hardened itself against God and would reap the consequences of its own cruelty. Just as Israel was plundered and ruined, so Assyria would fall.

Ninevah had a gracious reprieve under Jonah’s preaching. But by the time of Nahum, the brief revival of respect for Yahweh was gone. And ruin was God’s decree now. The nation that once prided itself on a brutal and efficient murdering army would itself be invaded and brutalized. Chariots would race through the city chasing people down in the haste of the invading army to plunder Assyria’s wealth. What would be left? Only desolation and smoking ruin (see Nahum 2:10).

When God has His day of judgment, no one can stop it. And the past is irrelevant to the present relationship with God. He calls people to believe, know, and worship Him NOW! A past of faithfulness won’t save a generation from His judgment if their present is only faithfulessness and unbelief! And His judgment is meant to call sinners back to faith, so that futures might be fixed on Him and His mercy, grace, and provision.