When You Just Want God to Say, "YES!"

River has a point. Sometimes it just seems like the only good answer is "yes." The only KIND answer is "yes."

Right now.

Right here. 

Right like you've prayed.

But what about when the answer comes and it's this...

Who do you think you are?! 

I remember hearing this question a time or two when I was a child. Once after blatantly disobeying my parents while we were shopping at K-mart. My sister and I took a few little suitcase keys that had fallen on the floor. We asked our parents if we could have them and they told us "no," but we took them anyway. A few days after we committed our crime, my little suitcase key betrayed me and fell out of my book satchel. My mother saw the key before I could pick it up and with astonishment, she asked, 

"Who do you think you are?!" 

She didn't expect an answer, in fact, she wasn't finished talking just yet... "Just wait until your father gets home. We will deal with this." 

That long afternoon culminated with a bit of an education when my Dad finally got home from work.

"Who do you think you are?"

We don't ask that question anymore. It sounds so derogatory.

We might hurt someone's feelings or harm their psyche. In fact, we go to extremes to continually express the exact opposite in order to cultivate the good in our children (and others) believing that if we don't bring their goodness forth the fault must be in us; or, in our structures; or in something that is systemically broken, but certainly the wickedness we're confronting is sourced in something other than their tender little selves.

The result of this kind of thinking is that we're losing the truth of Romans 3:23. 

"For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." 

In order to receive the incredible message of salvation, we have to first come face to face with an irrefutable understanding of our brokenness. Without knowing we're broken...separated...less than what we were created to be...we can't comprehend our need for a Savior.

Perhaps this is why the book of Job is so powerful. I read in my quiet time this morning that when God responded to Job's complaint in Job 38-41, He never mentioned to Job that the terrible, no-good, very bad days he'd been experiencing were rooted in a heavenly challenge between God and Satan.

(Might I add here that if anyone had a legitimate complaint against God, Job did!)

God's answer to Job begins Job 38:2, "Who is this that darkens my counsel with words without knowledge?" 

In other words, "Job, who do you think you are?!" 

Job had been questioning God's "counsel"--His purposes and plans; His Master design. Oh how Job wondered at where God was; why this was happening; when it would stop. And if I'm absolutely honest with you (which I try to be most of the time I write these posts), much of my prayer life can often sound a whole lot like Job's.

Oh God, Please! Where are You in this?

Why is this happening to me? 

Please, please make it stop! 

Say, "YES! It's KIND to say YES!" 

And since I find myself in Job's prayers, I find myself in God's response.

All God did was to remind Job of his littleness and of God's bigness. Basically God asked a whole lot of "where were you when...?" questions that weren't supposed to be answered. They are the kind of questions that put you in your place. And oh how we've forgotten how good it is to be put in our place at times. 

Listen to what the devotion writer said about God's response to Job and what it accomplished: 

"The effect of great pain is claustrophobic. Our pain can become the whole world to us. Suffering makes egotists of us all. God's treatment of Job though harsh, relieved him of the burden Job and his friends created. It is burden enough to suffer in a world we don't understand; it is too heavy a burden to believe that our suffering, not God, is what was and is and ever will be, world without end. Job's humility was chastened and deepened." 

I don't know what you might be going through. I don't know why its happening to you and I don't know when it will ever end. But this I do know: God's got this and He's got you. If you're struggling to believe me, consider your answers to these questions God asked Job, 

"Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation? Tell me if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone--while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?" Job 38:4-7 NIV

Who do you think you are?! 

"Then Job replied to the Lord, 'I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted. You asked, 'Who is this that obscures my counsel without knowledge (questions Me and My master plan)?' Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know.'" Job 42:2-3

I'm with You, LORD, all the way.