NEAT, PLAUSIBLE, AND WRONG!

Tonight our small group continued with our study of the Book of Job. For all the inquiring minds, we were in chapters 11 and 12. The more we delve into the dialogue between Job and his three “dis-comforters” it becomes clear that this is a time of redefining the theology of everyone involved. God wasn’t exactly who they thought Him to be. The prevailing thought of the day was that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people. Job believed this as much as his friends, that is until life happened. As Job’s situation moved from bad to worse, everything he had learned about God up to this point in his life was being challenged. 

In one of my favorite quotes, H.L. Mencken once said, “There is always well-known solution to every human problem—neat, plausible, and wrong.” I have found that to be so true, so many times. Job and his friends were quickly finding out what we have found out: Life doesn’t always fit into our pre-conceived, and, dare I say, pre-contrived notions. There’s nothing like an extended season of struggle and trouble to blow up our theology and introduce us to a God who is greater and grander than we ever imagined. 

Check this passage from Job 12:13-25

"To God belong wisdom and power; counsel and understanding are his. 14 What he tears down cannot be rebuilt; the man he imprisons cannot be released. 15 If he holds back the waters, there is drought; if he lets them loose, they devastate the land. 16 To him belong strength and victory; both deceived and deceiver are his. 17 He leads counselors away stripped and makes fools of judges. 18 He takes off the shackles put on by kings and ties a loincloth around their waist. 19 He leads priests away stripped and overthrows men long established. 20 He silences the lips of trusted advisers and takes away the discernment of elders. 21 He pours contempt on nobles and disarms the mighty. 22 He reveals the deep things of darkness and brings deep shadows into the light. 23 He makes nations great, and destroys them; he enlarges nations, and disperses them. 24 He deprives the leaders of the earth of their reason; he sends them wandering through a trackless waste. 25 They grope in darkness with no light; he makes them stagger like drunkards.”

I hope you know this powerful God described so profoundly by Job. As we closed our small group this evening I found myself praying David’s description of God in Psalm 24:8 (NIV) “The LORD strong and mighty, the LORD mighty in battle.” If you are going through a particularly difficult time right now, I pray that in the middle of it all you will have an encounter with “the LORD strong and mighty”, even while you discover all your neat and plausible solutions [theologies] are wrong.