FIRST! Again

By Alan Smith

A shop manager overheard an assistant saying to a customer, “No,  we haven’t had any for some weeks now, and it doesn’t look as if we’ll be getting any soon.”
Alarmed by what was being said, the manager rushed over to the customer who was walking out the door and said, “That isn’t true, ma’am. Of course, we’ll have some soon.  In fact, we placed an order for it a couple of weeks ago.”
Then the manager drew the clerk aside and growled, “Never, ever say we don’t have something.  If we don’t have it, say we ordered it and it’s on its way.  Now, what was it she wanted?”
The assistant smiled and said, “Rain.”

We must come to the realization that there are some things that we cannot provide.  There is only one God and I am not him!  When all is said and done in the book of Job, that’s the message with which we are left. After Job spent most of the book begging to know why God had allowed to happen to him the things that happened, God answered Job. However, he never directly answered Job’s questions.  He merely reminded him of which one of them was God:

“Have you ever ordered the morning to begin, or shown the dawn where its place was?….Can you bring out the stars on time?….Can you shout an order to the clouds and cover yourself with a flood of water? Can you send lightning bolts on their way?….Job, are you the one who gives the horse its strength or puts a flowing mane on its neck?” (Job 38:12,32,34-35; 39:19 NIV)

The answer to God’s questions to obvious.  Like Job, I can’t do any of those things.   I sometimes make the mistake of thinking, “If I were God, I would do things differently.”  Reading Job 38 and 39 serves to remind me that I don’t even come close to having the qualifications for the job.

So, like Job, I will humble myself in the presence of the Almighty and bow down before him, trusting him even in the midst of those things I don’t always fully understand.

Used by permission from http://www.tftd-online.com/