God Speaks from the Storm

“Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?” — Job 38:4

For a long, long time, Job sat in his sadness, with his sores and his questions. His three friends kept arguing with him. They said he must have done something terrible. Job said he hadn’t. He wanted God to answer him. “Why, God? Why is this happening to me?”

At last, God answered Job. He spoke to him out of a great whirlwind, a mighty storm.

But God didn’t explain why everything had happened. Instead, He asked Job some questions.

“Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?” God said. “Tell Me, if you understand. Who decided how big the earth would be? Who stretched a measuring line across it? Where were you when the morning stars sang together, and all the angels shouted for joy?”

“Have you ever told the morning to come, or shown the sunrise where to start?

“Have you ever walked into the storehouses of the snow, or seen where I keep the hail?

“Can you send the lightning on its way? Does it come to you and say, ‘Here we are’?

“Who gives the lion its food? Who feeds the baby ravens when they cry out to God? Do you know when the mountain goats give birth? Did you give the horse its strength? Is it by your wisdom that the hawk flies?”

God went on and on, describing the wonders of His world: the stars and the sea, the snow and the rain, the wild animals and the birds. Things Job could never understand or control.

And Job realised how great God is. “I know that You can do anything,” Job said, “and nothing can stop Your plans. I talked about things I didn’t understand, things too wonderful for me to know. I had heard about You before, but now I have seen You with my own eyes.”

God never told Job why he had suffered. But Job didn’t need to know any more. He had met God. He knew that God is so great, so wise, so powerful, that he could trust Him, even without understanding.

Then God told Job’s friends they had been wrong about Job. And Job prayed for his friends. After that, God gave Job a new family, seven sons and three daughters, and twice as many animals as he had before. The Lord blessed the end of Job’s life even more than the beginning.

The New Testament says, “You have heard of Job’s perseverance and have seen the outcome from the Lord. The Lord is full of compassion and mercy” (James 5:11).

Read it in your Bible: Job 38:1–11; 42:1–17

Dear God, you are so great and so wise. When I don’t understand what’s happening, help me to trust you anyway. Thank you that you are full of compassion and mercy. Amen.