“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding.” (Job 38:4 ESV)
Many of us often wonder why God allows some much suffering and pain in the world, in our lives. Throughout the book of Job, Job and his friends struggled unsuccessfully to come to terms with that problem. When the Lord spoke at last, He asked Job a question that revealed that neither Job nor his friends were in any position to offer an opinion or assessment on how the Lord should manage and run the universe He had created. They cannot because they did not see things from the Lord’s perspective and had no access to or knowledge of all the Lord knows, no clue has to how He runs things or why. The Lord proceeded to demonstrate how small human knowledge is, so that humans have no justification for calling Him unjust or unfair. His series of graphic yet unanswerable questions ought to make each one of us keep our mouths quiet and never again boast of our “wisdom”.
The Lord began with the origin of the world. No man was there to see this, so we really cannot accuse God of mismanagement. We stand helpless before the aspects of creation that the Lord speaks of. So-called natural events seem to occur with random unpredictability and without reason or logic; but the Lord controls all of them, sets their limits and uses them for His own purposes. We humans label God’s power as “mother nature” and spend a lot of time and energy trying to prevent or control natural disasters, severe storms and climate change. Yet the best science and government can do is make predictions, attempt to minimize risk, and repair the resulting damage. As we have seen in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy these things have limited value. The best thing man can really do is to place himself in the hands of the Lord, trust Him and ask for mercy, forgiveness, wisdom and the strength to endure. We do not have to know those reasons why God allows such things to happen to us, but it helps us to have faith and trust that His ways are always right.