“Behold, this we have searched out; it is true. Hear, and know it for your good.” Job 5:27
There is quite no frustration like wanting to say something but having no words to express it. As Margie and I continue on in Spanish language study, this is becoming quite the regular occurrence. You’re writing a sentence using a Spanish verb you just learned, yet when it comes to the nouns, adjectives, adverbs, and prepositional phrases needed to round out the thought, the mind locks up like so many rusty gears and cogs protesting in denial. The mind knows what it wants to say, yet the words it grasps for only result in handfuls of empty air. Through this frustration a new truth comes to mind, you can only state what is within your mental grasp. Or to rather express it in some sweet southern vernacular, you can only pour out what’s in your own bucket.
Job chapter 5 continues with Eliphaz addressing Job’s plight. Eliphaz is educated, his language is flowery and full, and he waxes on eloquently and confidently about why Job is in the fix he is in. His monologue contains gems like, “I have seen” and “as for me”. Eliphaz has seen many things in his long and full life, and he is applying what he has seen to the advice he is giving Job. But the question looms like a thick cloud of black smoke hanging on a crystal-clear horizon…what about the things Eliphaz has not seen in his life? Is it possible that his bucket does not contain all the water that is needed to properly explain and understand Job’s plight? And the answer to that rhetorical question is a big inflatable yes large enough to fill an NFL stadium. Eliphaz’s faux paus was pridefully explaining the logic of God with a woefully small human bucket.
Today, be ever so careful in applying limited human logic to the powerful and perfect plan of Almighty God. He can take the worst situation and within the power of His miraculous hands, make it as beautiful as a new dawn. He can take disaster and calamity and weave them into a tapestry that will mesmerize the eyes in its wonder and intricacy. He can use death, cancer, and sickness to draw lost lives to Himself in a symphonic harmony of providence that will leave you scratching your head in wonder. You see, God’s bucket is much different than ours. God’s bucket holds unlimited and unparalleled wisdom, wonder, and foresight. Man, in his attempts to define and understand God, can only go as far down as the bottom of the small bucket he carries. In man’s narrow, finite knowledge, he develops preconceived notions about God that will only lead to frustration, disappointment, and disillusion as God works in ways we cannot understand. Today, don’t limit God in your own reasoning, allow Him to operate unlimited. Today, don’t put God in a box, allow Him to define the box. And in these ways of allowing God to be as big as He really is, you will find your faith and joy where it should be, in Him, not in your own bucket.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make straight your paths. Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord, and turn away from evil. It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones.” Proverbs 3:5-8
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