I imagined I was driving north on M22, a route in Michigan that delights you with lakes and woods and small towns, making you envy people who live there, but, no, it was Illinois 161 and I was heading toward Hoffman, a small town in Clinton County. The “lakes” were hundreds and hundreds of acres of rich farm ground flooded by overflowing rivers and creeks. I didn’t envy the people who live there.
Pastor Stephen Krenz led worship at Trinity in Hoffman. He read Job 38:1-11. The Almighty had heard enough of Job’s self-righteousness: “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?” But then God said something that invites pushback. “Who shut in the sea with doors…and prescribed limits for it…and said, ‘Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stayed’”? Did the worshippers see the contradiction between that and their flooded fields?
The answer is basic. The Creator established limits for all He made, but ever since Adam and Eve transgressed God’s command, sin has been luring us to go beyond the limits. “Thou shalt” and “Thou shalt not” are now thought irrelevant in our morally collapsing society. Nature is infected as well, creation being “in bondage” and “groaning” for redemption, and so water overflows boundaries, cancer cells multiply wildly, and we’re beset with all kinds of diseases and storms.
“Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” asked the disciples. Jesus calms the storm and Himself pushes back, “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?” (Mark 4:38-40). What is this “faith” for the storms of life? “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). With troubles flooding our lives, faith trusts the One who laid the foundations of the earth. “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God…. In this hope we were saved” and “we wait for it with patience” (Romans 8:18-19, 24, 25). Whom should we envy? Anyone who perseveres in faith and hope.
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