Ostriches

I’ve been reading the Book of Job. Not exactly fun! Until, that is, you get to the end, where God speaks to Job. I absolutely love that bit. He takes Job through a tour of Creation, from the furthest-flung galaxies to extremes of weather and the wonders of animal life.

I particularly enjoy what God says about ostriches (Job 39:13-18). What on earth are their little wings for? They flap them so happily as they run, apparently imagining that they are flying like storks! It doesn’t make sense, does it? And they’re such stupid birds: look how they care for their eggs and their hatchlings!

The lesson that God was teaching Job was a hard one, but it’s one that, sooner or later, every one of us will need to learn. And God instructs Job with so much humour!

We will all experience things that are inexplicable and, often, very painful. Job and his ‘comforters’ had been trying to make sense of the disasters that had befallen him. They had their own explanations. Job’s friends’ theory was: “Things only go wrong if you’ve sinned; so, Job, you must have sinned. Repent and all will be well”. Job’s explanation was, “I haven’t sinned, so God must be unfair. I wish I’d never been born”.

So, what does God have to say? “Listen, all of you: your problem is that there are things that you’ll never really understand”.

Suffering is one of them. And that’s why He talks to Job about galaxies and thunderstorms and crocodiles (‘you wouldn’t give one of those to your little girls as a pet to play with, would you’ – Job 41:5) and, yes, ostriches. These are all things neither he nor his friends really understood. But God understands them, and they are all part of His perfect way of working.

Things happen that we can’t make sense of. Sometimes (too often, maybe) they are very painful. And so often we are tempted to say, “I must have sinned” or “God’s unfair – why me”?

What God was teaching Job and his friends was this: Submitting all you think, do and are and all your reactions to Me is foundational. Without that, you’re not really in the right place. Job was morally very good indeed. But he still needed to repent. He needed to repent of thinking that he knew better than God: ‘I have declared without understanding things too wonderful for me to know’ (Job 42:3).

Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 10:5, ‘We take every thought captive to make it obey Christ’. That’s quite a challenge, isn’t it.