Feeling Blah? Ponder This!

Hi Friends,

I'm working on my talks for an upcoming women's retreat and came across these quotes from Job 38-39. I sat for a while and soaked them in, letting God use them to renew in me a sense of His awe and wonder. Here are the snippets from Job, along with a few of my thoughts. May they renew your wonder in a VIVID and BREATHTAKING God!!

**Where were you when the morning stars sang together? And all the angels shouted for joy?**

--Not just a cold creation, but God, the creator, bringing things to life in beauty and song. Life and wonder and stars at song came from Him. Wouldn’t you have loved to be there, to see that, to see Him??

**Who endowed the heart with wisdom?**

--Did you make a good decision? Do you need to make one? God rules all that. ONLY in God do things make sense. He is where wisdom is found, and He gives His wisdom to us.

**Who can tip over the water jars of the heavens?**

--When it rains, that’s not just nature. That’s God. In charge of the weather. Involved in every detail.

**Who provides food for the raven?**

--The raven, a bird that’s not real popular. Black, kinda ugly. And yet, there is God, giving the raven what it needs to survive. God does that.

**Who shut up the sea behind doors?**

Might. Power. Authority. Think of the beauty, wonder, majesty of the sea. Have you been to the ocean to watch the waves crash on the rocks. It’s incredible. And yet, God is the master of the seas. They are His. Wow.

**Have you ever shown the dawn its place?**

--Every morning the sun comes up in all its beauty. That’s God. Every single sunrise a reminder of Him.

**Have you walked in the recesses of the deep?**

--Ah, here, think of mystery, of the unknown. Things you’ve never seen, no one has ever seen. Here, God points to walking in the deeps to remind us of His depths, that He is beyond what we can know fully. He knows all the mysteries, has walked all the depths. And He is mystery, He is depths. God in a box? No way.

**Have you entered the storehouses of the snow?**

--Can anyone tell me that you weren’t awed by snow as a kid? Soft, beautiful, gentle at times. Fierce and wild at others. Snow means play, and unpredictability. It means fun, and cold. Forts and snuggling up by a fire. You can play in it, but you can’t control it. Scary and wonderful. That’s God. He gives us a hint of who he is by giving us the snow.

**Who cuts a path for the thunderstorm?**

--Think of the power of a thunderstorm. The might. Thunderstorms were something people were afraid of, sometimes still are – they represent the unmanageable, the uncontrollable. Yet, God manages thunderstorm He is real power. He is real might! He is master.

**Can you bind the beautiful Pleiades?**

--The Pleiades is a cluster of some 300 stars. Who holds them together? Who keeps the stars in place? That’s God. When you look up at night, there they are. The constellations still testifying to God’s glory.

**Do you know when the mountain goats give birth?**

--Ah, one of my favorites because it’s set amidst all these other grand questions about stars and storms. And here we have something so intimate and close. That huge, powerful, incredible God is there, pays attention, when the mountain goat gives birth. We have to see the incredible mix of grandeur and intimacy with our God. So huge, so close. As far as the furthest stars, as close and intimate as a goat giving birth.

**Who let the wild donkey go free?**

--There’s nothing that’s chance. He lets the wild donkey go free. The God of all the universe, involved in the rope that holds a donkey.

**Does the hawk take flight by your wisdom?**

--The flight of a hawk … even there you can see the glory of God. Watch the birds in the sky. That’s a testimony to God’s wonder.

**Can you loose the cords of Orion?**

Here (again) we see that it’s God keeps the constellations in place. But not only that, but everything. The Bible says that “In Him all things hold together.” Have you ever tried to put the two positive ends of a magnet together? You can’t – they repel each other. Two positive charges won’t stay together. And yet ever atom in the universe is made up of positively charged protons that stick together. We take it for granted, after all, atoms and protons are the most basic parts of our entire world and physical existence. And there, especially there, we find the hand of God holding everything together … literally.

**Who has the wisdom to count the clouds?**

--Look up at the clouds sprinkled like powder in the sky. Every one placed there by God’s hand. Incredible.

**Who gives birth to the frost from the heavens?**

--See the frost on the ground in winter? Have you seen the intricate structure of crystal in frost on your windshield? Delicate, perfect – has to be perfect to form. Precise. If you could see it up close, would take your breath away. God did that.