It's There... You Just Have To Look For It!

[image: Roadside Wildflowers, 2008, JA Van Devender]

Job 37:14 (NKJV)

¹⁴ “Listen to this, O Job; Stand still and consider the wondrous works of God.

It's a theme that bears repeating I suppose because it seems just so easy to forget it.

Life is not intended to be spent in a hectic, head-long gallop, racing from one ultimately inconsequential task or activity or appointment or whatever to another.

Neither is life intended to be frivolously wasted in mindless distractions that consume big chunks of time.

And... life is certainly not to be stripped of its joy by compulsive preoccupation with negative thoughts, issues, problems or passions that brings on a "tunnel vision" focus blinding us to all else about us.

It's interesting how Elihu sets the stage for God Himself to speak to Job, a man who was certainly preoccupied with stuff. Elihu's speech rehearses many of the same themes that God Himself will state with absolute precision and mind-boggling penetration. Elihu points to the world about Job... he tells him that God is so transcendently great that "we cannot know Him!" (36:26). God is beyond our comprehension in His being... the only way we can know anything about Him is through His actions to reveal Himself to us. And what is the most immediate, continuous, over-whelming, encompassing revelation that He gives? Why, it is the world about us itself!

Certainly... stuff happens... and we don't know what all of it means. But we know this. God is in charge of it (37:13) and nothing is happening... or will happen... of has happened... apart from His guiding hand. He does not always reveal His purposes to us... (v. 13 again) whether it is for "correction" or simply provision of needs ("for His land") or for "mercy." We are not always informed of the "why." He's God... He never stops being God... and He never, ever gives up His prerogatives as God. He expects us to understand this fundamental fact. His great mercy is that He has brought us into covenant relationship with Himself. Our great hope is that He absolutely will keep His promises to us. What He requires of us is that we trust Him. Not just with the events of that great day in the future when the dead in Christ shall arise .... not just with a future hope... but with a "now" hope. A "now" trust that whatever is going on... whatever is to fill our day... is within His plans and our obedience is to be in the full span of that hope.

In other words... if we think that it is all up to us and we cannot stop even for a moment to catch our breath or else God's entire Kingdom plan is going to collapse about our ears and that He will be so ticked off at us that He will probably fry us right there on the spot... well, you get my drift. That's not really trusting Him very much at all... is it?

God has filled this earth with evidences of His presence for the very purpose of reminding us... we who are the beneficiaries of His covenant... that He is here, ... that it is not all up to us... and that, in fact, it never has been all up to us. We are His work. We are under His guiding hand just like the stars and the moon and the thunderstorms and the flowers along the road.

If, right next to a busy highway, filled with rushing cars and drivers who are so intense and so intent of getting somewhere to do something that 50 years from now won't make a hill of beans worth of difference, God can cause a beautiful flower to grow... then it is there for a reason.

"Hey guys", He says through the flower, "look at me. Pause for a moment... take a deep breath... relax the stress ridden muscles in your neck. See how beautiful I am and look where I am growing. God is in His heaven and He is also in His earth. He is here... all you have to do is look and see."

"Stand still and consider the wondrouus works of God!" Close your eyes (not if the car is moving) ... take a minute... think of God's magnificent reality. Now open your eyes and look about you. Where is the beauty that He has place within your span of vision right now? It's there... somewhere... if you can get past the works of man that clutter up the place. Space your day with intervals such as this. Rest between the bursts of energy that you are to expend on whatever is there for you to do today. Obedience, in whatever you are doing, is conditioned by first remembering that you are not alone in your doing of it. God is with you. You will find that you will be provided with what you need to do His will.

Look about you... He's there... He will show you He's there... You just have to look and see.