Where were you?

1 Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind:
2 "Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?
3 Gird up your loins like a man,
I will question you, and you shall declare to me.

I love it when other people argue with God and I kind of get to watch. I like this image of Job having it out with God---and getting the tables turned on him---because I can snicker at it. I can snicker because I've been there but this time it isn't me. It's kind of like when I was a kid and I happened to overhear my grandmother chewing out my younger brother. I had to bury my face in my arm I was laughing so hard. I'm not saying it was the right thing to do. I'm just admitting I did it.

So when I see God telling Job to "gird up his loins like a man" I want to roll on the carpet laughing. I know I shouldn't laugh, but I do it anyway. Like I laugh at Jonah when he's sitting on the hill angry because Nineveh didn't get smote...and by smote I mean turned into a grease spot. Why? I've been there. I know how he feels. (I was wrong too, by the way.)

¹ But Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry. ² He prayed to the LORD, "O LORD, is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. ³ Now, O LORD, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live."

⁴ But the LORD replied, "Have you any right to be angry?"

Do we have any right to be angry when God is kind to people we don't like? Where were we when he laid the foundations of the earth anyway? Do we get to decide? Do we hold the keys to to the universe?

No...we don't...and thank God we don't. We can't be trusted with such things. We're too small, for one thing. We want pity when we're in trouble and laugh when someone else is in the same situation. Sometimes it's easier for God to show us we're wrong than to tell us:

⁵ Jonah went out and sat down at a place east of the city. There he made himself a shelter, sat in its shade and waited to see what would happen to the city. ⁶ Then the LORD God provided a vine and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was very happy about the vine. ⁷ But at dawn the next day God provided a worm, which chewed the vine so that it withered. ⁸ When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah's head so that he grew faint. He wanted to die, and said, "It would be better for me to die than to live."

⁹ But God said to Jonah, "Do you have a right to be angry about the vine?"
"I do," he said. "I am angry enough to die."

Ever notice how often Jonah wants to die? I digress.

¹⁰ But the LORD said, "You have been concerned about this vine, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. ¹¹ But Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?"

They can't tell their right hand from their left---and neither can we. Oh gentle God, thank you for your kindness and patience with us. We don't deserve it---and you're constantly showing us how little such things matter to you---because love isn't something can run out.

The more you give it away the more it grows.