Learning About God

Job 9:1-15, 32-35
Acts 10:34-48
John 7:37-52
Job says a curious thing at the end of today’s passage from that book. “For I know I am not what I’m thought to be,” he says (Job 9:35b). Is Job talking about the view that his friends seem to have of him, or is he talking about the way God is treating him and his own powerlessness to address God? Either way, Job is a man on a journey of discovery. Though he has been made miserable by loss and grief and suffering, he continues to question and consider everything that has happened, looking for answers, or at least a fuller understanding of what God is up to.

Peter, too, is on a journey of discovery. At the beginning of the passage from Acts Peter expresses a new understanding of God’s grace. “God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him” (Acts 10:34-35). This is really an earth-shattering realization, one that will make it possible for the church to spread, not just throughout the Jewish community, but across the face of the known world. Indeed, this one sentence and the ultimate baptism of Cornelius’s household sets the stage for Paul’s ministry to the gentiles.

There may be times when we believe we have God “all figured out”, that we understand or can predict what God will do. The truth is that we simply cannot reach that point in life. God is beyond our grasp, and just when we think we have God in a box, like the religious leaders of Jesus’ day who dismissed him on the grounds of his birthplace (John 7:52), God does something so surprising and unexpected that we can only stand in awe. We are all on a journey of understanding, one step at a time, day by day. This is why it is essential to continue studying, praying, listening, worshipping, sharing within the community of faith and outside of it. This is why it is so crucial to keep moving along, with minds open to God’s work and word.

Prayer: Lord, help us to live as those who would learn, so that we never reach the point where we believe we have you all figured out. Amen.