Probably not a single one of us truly understands how truly massive the universe is. The sprawling, vacuous emptiness beyond our atmosphere is so vast that even a beam of light, which would cross our nation in a hundredth of a second, has not had enough time since the universe’s creation to reach the edge. This planet is an unseen speck compared to the gigantic, beautiful storms that speckle space by the quadrillions. And yet this planet teems with miraculous life of inordinate complexity, meticulously comprised of ingeniously devised particles far too small for manmade machines to even detect. One thing’s for sure: you are not awestruck by creation enough.
With all this and so much more, imagine having the audacity to challenge God! Imagine coming against the Creator of all, the one who knows every star and every atom by name, and accusing him of wrong! And imagine God simply responding with his resumé and reminding you that even the universe’s mightiest terrors bow to him! What case could we possibly bring against the Almighty?
Job, after God answers his case in that very way, does the smart thing and says nothing. As my wise grandfather often said, never miss an opportunity to shut up. Job is faced with the fullness of how great and awesome God is, and how small he himself is, and it radicalizes his worldview so dramatically that he is dumbstruck into silence. If we’re not careful, we’ll find ourselves with a worldview in which we are too large and God is too small. But his immeasurable glory should leave us dumbstruck; it should annihilate any thought in which we centralize ourselves. Who do we dare think we are? We’re insignificant in light of all that God is.
But this lesson from Job gives crucial context for another miraculous truth to then amaze us: how much God cares for us still. We are insignificant compared to the Creator—we cannot even be the main characters of our own stories—and yet, incredibly, we are the primary objects of God’s love out of all the universe. This great God even humbled himself down to our insignificance in order to redeem us to his love. So our part to play in the beautiful narrative of God’s creation, even though we can’t be as central as we would sometimes like, is a far more glorious one than we could ask for! Seriously—what case could we possibly bring against the Almighty? His greatness, and also his love for us, will never leave us awestruck enough.
