Closed Circuits

“Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said: ‘Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?’” – Job 38:2

Life these days can feel more like a closed circuit. Less input, less output. With fewer points of reference, it’s easier to be swayed by whatever does come in. With fewer external outlets, it’s easier to displace frustrations onto other members of the family. It’s easier to become your own echo chamber.

It’s amazing how long Job and his friends go on for: thirty-five-some chapters of talk, back and forth. This line, right here, feels like the best line in the book. I don’t have Job’s friends, but it strikes me how often I get lost in my own head, in my own perspectives and analyses, until the counsel I give myself is like that word without knowledge. Sometimes, what I need is not more analysis, but an encounter with God. What I need is not more internal rumination, but to look at something outside of myself. Would anyone have expected that God’s answer to Job is to take him on a tour of the world? But look, he says, at the high stars and the deep sea. Look at the rain and snow, the lion and mountain goats, the ox and the ostrich. Look at the horse leaping and the hawk soaring. Behold the Behemoth and Leviathan. Look beyond yourself for a moment. Look at me.

Maybe for me that means opening up my Bible to listen for God may have to say, rather than what I’d like to hear. Maybe it means getting out of the house, or standing outside at night to look at the stars. Maybe it means sitting silently in God’s presence without distraction. Maybe it means praying more and thinking less.

Job doesn’t have much to say after God speaks. But what he does say, says it all: “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you.” Help us to see you like that, God.