On Day 1, we introduce the story for the week. Day 2 helps us shape our worldview, the lens through which we see how things work and how we see true reality. Today helps us dial in some pretty fuzzy views.
 
If you’ve ever read through the whole book of Job, you probably read the final chapters like I did, with your eyebrows raised and muttering to yourself something like, “uh oh, that’s not good!”

Job has spent chapter after chapter wrestling with suffering, injustice, unanswered questions, and the apparent silence of God. His “friends” gave more explanation than he’d asked for, and most of what they said was just plain wrong anyway. Job has asked God repeatedly to answer him.

And then He does.

But, as one would expect, the answer isn’t quite what Job expected.

God doesn’t offer a play-by-play explanation of why things went down the way they did. He begins by taking Job on a tour of Creation. He points to the magnificent things He’d created, asking Job each time something like “where were you when I did that?” By the time we arrive in Chapter 40, we’re almost overwhelmed with the picture God has painted. These are things Job can’t tame, control, or overpower. He’s not bringing the Behemoth home as a family pet!
Job gets the message: The world is full of things that are far beyond him, and that might be scary at first, but God doesn’t show him all this to terrify him. He’s reminding Job these things may be beyond his control, but they aren’t beyond God.
 
In comparison to these creatures and the expanse of creation, Job seems terribly insignificant. But he’s reminded that in God’s eyes all these creatures are just like him, creatures, creations, and as such, under the authority of God.
 
That’s good for us to remember because fear has a way of making everything look ultimate and larger than life. Things too big to control or too mysterious to understand can have us shaking in our boots! But God won’t allow us to do that with the evil of this world.

I’m not saying the dark forces of this world aren’t real, dangerous, or imposing; these passages just remind us they’re not divine and they’re not ultimate. Those belong only to God.  
Job reminds us the throne of heaven isn’t threatened by forces we can’t control, questions we can’t answer, spiritual realities we can’t see, or battles we are too weak to win. Sure, it would be awesome if God explained every detail, every hidden thing, and mapped out the spiritual world with utter clarity, but neither Job nor we receive that kind of explanation. What he does receive is a much larger vision of who God is.
 
The first thing we need to remember in spiritual warfare is that nothing in the seen or unseen realm has ever been and never will be God’s equal.

What fear or circumstances tend to grow larger in your mind the longer you think about them? How can you use God’s response to Job to help you ground your thoughts between something being out of your control and out of His?

Father, there’s so much in this world, seen and unseen, I don’t understand or see clearly at all. Sometimes I forget how small they are compared to You. Forgive me when fear gives created things authority they don’t really have. Teach me to take evil seriously without acting like You aren’t in control. Deepen my confidence in the One who sees completely and rules without fear. Amen.

“One thing I need to place back under God's rule in my imagination is _______________.”