Sights and Insights
From out of a storm,
the Lord said to Job:
Why do you talk so much
when you know so little?
Now get ready to face me!
Can you answer
the questions I ask?
How did I lay the foundation
for the earth?
Were you there? (Job 38:1-4, CEV)
As I was sitting down for the evening, an alert came to my phone: “Tornado Warning: Go to your basement immediately.” I did not immediately go to the basement. Instead I checked the details of the warning and saw that I was not actually in the included area. Still, the power of a tornado is real and something with which to be truly concerned when a warning is declared. It was the second warning in a few weeks. Both required dropping everything, at least for a few moments, in order to ascertain the danger level and be prepared for what might happen. Tornadoes are reminders of the power in this world that is beyond anything we could control.
In the ending of the book of Job, God speaks to Job from the whirlwind. Throughout the book, Job and others give their theories and complaints about why there is suffering in the world, protesting that God would allow trouble to come into the lives of even those who are faithful. After many chapters of this, God speaks to Job. God does not give an answer. Rather, God asks Job why he thinks he thinks he, or any other human, has the capacity to understand why the world works as it does. God reminds Job of how small a person is in the scheme of things. It is a reminder that the powers of this world are vastly stronger than we people could possibly understand. Yet God does indeed work through these natural forces and complex systems of the world. God can even use a tornado, the most intense and unpredictable force imaginable, as a speaker system through which to communicate with Job.
The power of tornadoes remind us that we are not the center of everything. We are small and the forces around us are beyond our control. Yet in the book of Job we are reminded that this world belongs to God. God is present in even the wildest of forces. We might not understand how or why the world works as it does, but we can trust that the God of the whirlwind is our God and will not leave us alone in this world.