Then the Lord answered Job from the whirlwind. He said: Who is this who obscures My counsel with ignorant words? Get ready to answer Me like a man; when I question you, you will inform Me. Where were you when I established he earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding. Who fixed its dimensions? Certainly you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? What supports its foundations? Or who laid its cornerstone while the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?
-Job 38:1-7 (HCSB)

Have you ever been criticized by someone who had no authority whatsoever to challenge the work you’ve done? You know the drill… You’ve been intensely pouring your heart and soul into a job/event/project, and out of nowhere Mr. Know-It-All walks in… “Why’d you do it that way? You’re doing it wrong. Here, let me show you how it’s done!”

It’s really irritating, isn’t it?

That’s what has been going on leading up to Chapter 38 of Job. Job is calling God out on his performance and God turns the tables around on him. I think it’s appropriate that God says to “answer Me like a man,” because God proceeds to give Job a verbal smackdown of epic proportions, and it’s not pretty.

“So you think you’ve got this thing all figured out now, do ya? Well, then allow me to ask you a question then, Job. Where were you when I established the earth? Don’t you remember when I laid all of the plans out? When I put it all in perfect balance, down to the tiniest measurement? Hmm, let’s see. Oh, that’s right… You didn’t exist.”

God uses Job’s obvious lack of experience and knowledge about the formation of the universe to expose his shortcomings in other areas of understanding. In other words, if God’s creation is over your head, then the totality of his wisdom, character, and morality will never be fully explainable.

If you know the entire story of Job, you know that he went through some very difficult circumstances. Initially, the man was very wealthy, very popular, and, overall, very good. But then, like a rug pulled from beneath his feet, everything he had was taken away. So you might empathize with him and want to say, “C’mon… Give the guy a break!”

But Job wasn’t merely questioning God… Job was playing God. And that’s the heart of the issue. Job thought he could handle the task better than God himself.

One of the things I’ve always loved about the book of Job is that it’s assumed to be the oldest book of the Bible. That is, it was written at the earliest date. So I find it very intriguing that the same pride that infected Job’s thinking is still doing the same thing to us thousands of years later! It’s rather amusing that humans have progressed so much culturally, intellectually, and technologically, but yet we still get ourselves in trouble trying to tell God how he should operate.

It’s an age-old problem. At some point in time, we all think we can do God’s job better than himself. Job did. So do we. And when we get all high and mighty with ourselves, we tend to forget exactly who God is and exactly who we are not. And that simple mix-up can have a catastrophic impact on our perspectives.

God is supreme. God is the standard. God is God.

And as for us? May God’s rebuttal to Job be a humble reminder… “Where were you?”