“But ask the animals, and they will teach you; the birds of the air, and they will tell you; ask the plants of the earth, and they will teach you; and the fish of the sea will declare to you. Who among all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this? In his hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of every human being. Does not the ear test words as the palate tastes food? Is wisdom with the aged, and understanding in length of days? “With God are wisdom and strength;” Job 12:7-13

{“What is that sound?” a woman visiting our nature center asked. “It’s the frogs trilling for a mate,” Patti, the naturalist, explained. “We have a pair in the science room. But they’ve been together for so long, they no longer sing to each other.” The woman nodded sympathetically. “The trill is gone.”} (KathyJo Townson)

Job says “With G-d are wisdom and strength…” I believe the older I get the more I realize how true this statement is. For most of his life, my father was never short on wisdom and advice. For most of my life I was unwise not to heed it. It is true, the older we get, the wiser our parents and other elders seem to become. The old adage is also true, if I had known then, what I know now, things could have been so much easier in my life. But, of course, just think of the things we learn through the struggles we encounter. This is part of what makes life so thrilling, if not enthralling and invigorating.

Think of the lessons we can determine from Job’s encounter with loss, and his struggle to understand why it all happened. While his friends seem to try to convince him that there must have been many things that he did wrong, and so he needs to confess his sins to G-d, Job stands firm that he believes he has been dealt a bad hand from G-d. In the end, though, Job will admit “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. Therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” (Job 42:2, 6) When we repent of our sins, and when we come to our senses to realize how “wise” our elders really are, there is always room for admitting that we do not know everything. Understanding of the ways of the world can be very hard. The same is true with understanding the ways of G-d. But when we repent of our sins before G-d, and realize how wise is the wisdom of G-d, we increase in knowledge, and see better the ways of Kingdom living. 

Pastor Dave