A Conversation With God–Drops of Dew

photo by Josh Scholten http://www.cascadecompass.com

²⁸ Does the rain have a father?
Who fathers the drops of dew?  Job 38:28

Each day, everywhere I look are reminders of the small ways that I depend on God rather than the other way around.  Self-sufficiency is pure illusion when God-sufficient is always more than enough.

The morning dew is not my doing;  I cannot lay claim to pouring out the restorative showers of mid-summer.

He cannot be contained within the inner universe of a dew drop and I, in my finiteness,  cannot ever escape.

photo by Josh Scholten http://www.cascadecompass.com

For a Conversation with God–Comprehending the Journey

from North Cascades Highway photo by Emily Gibson

¹⁶ “Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea
or walked in the recesses of the deep?
¹⁷ Have the gates of death been shown to you?
Have you seen the gates of the deepest darkness?
¹⁸ Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth?
Tell me, if you know all this.
Job 38: 16-18

We may feel we have plumbed the depths and walked in the valley and peered at the gates of darkness.  Grief, abandonment, suffering, pain and loss–all things Job was experiencing acutely–can make us feel that we know how bad things can get.   But God says we cannot comprehend what He knows and sees, where He journeys and walks.  Only God has perfect understanding of where we have been and where we will go.

We hold His hand while He guides and protects us in the darkest places.  Only He knows the way.

photo by Josh Scholten http://www.cascadecompass.com

For a Conversation with God–Taking Shape

photo by Josh Scholten http://www.cascadecompass.com

¹⁴ The earth takes shape like clay under a seal;
its features stand out like those of a garment.
Job 38:14

I don’t think much about the molding and shaping that I have undergone until I look in the mirror or at old photos.  Like the earth changes by the flow of water and waves, wind and quake, my body is in transition, stamped as if by a seal, adorned with gray, accumulating lines, wrinkles and sags like a treasured well worn garment.

There are many people who mightily resist aging with surgery, implants, hair dye and drugs.  Then there are those of us who simply feel it happening, knowing we are being sculpted by the potter,  even though the original glossy glaze is wearing off.

When earth is God-stamped with His seal, it is beautiful.  And so, sealed and delivered, are we.

photo by Josh Scholten http://www.cascadecompass.com

For a Conversation With God–Shaking the Earth

 ¹² “Have you ever given orders to the morning,
or shown the dawn its place,
¹³ that it might take the earth by the edges
and shake the wicked out of it?
Job 38: 12-13

The dawn comes exceptionally early the first days of summer.  Birds are singing by 4 AM, with light creeping across the horizon soon after.   Yet there is a startling suddenness of day break–as if earth has been taken by the edges and given a good shake, so what is left is crisp and clear and clean for a new day.

I need a good shake every now and then to loosen the filth and debris that I’ve accumulated and no longer even notice in my life.  The orderliness of the daily sunrise and the birdsong are a reminder of control that I will never have or know.  I witness it rather than orchestrate it.

Like the dawn, I am shown my place.

 

For a Conversation with God–Where was I?

From Job 38:
“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
Tell me, if you understand.
⁵ Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
Who stretched a measuring line across it?
⁶ On what were its footings set,
or who laid its cornerstone—
⁷ while the morning stars sang together
and all the angels shouted for joy? ”

Today my hankering is to be put in my place, reminded of my insignificance in the vastness of time and space. This chapter of Job which we studied together last night at our little church confirms that.  As often as I may try to control my life and that of those around me, or complain when I cannot, I must remember:

He is God
and I am not

I was not there at the beginning. He was.

In the beginning,
God

Yet He speaks to us, this God of the Beginning, the Middle and the End.

And I listen, yearning for more.