Passage Read: Job 5-8
Meditation Verses: 7:17-21
Thought
God made man to rule over His creation, not just to live in anonymity, not just to live and die like the animals. He made us to work alongside Himself. We are precious to Him and He desires us to be with Him forever. But we have gone astray. We have not sought Him out to learn from Him how He desires us to rule. We have trusted in our own wisdom. We have ignored Him. We have become unaware of Him. But He still desires us, and wants to train us and teach us His ways so that we can dwell forever with Him. It is we who have judged ourselves unworthy; it is we who have sought out the life of animals, with no greater ambition than to live and reproduce and enjoy our days and die. God created us for so much more, but we're uninterested. So His attempts to save us and train us are seen as interference, and we despise Him.
Application
What is man that God pays so much attention to him? He is a privileged creation, created to rule and reign over this whole creation forever. Created to learn about God and walk with Him and learn to rule beneath Him. Created to be His precious child and to inherit all this world, to rule over it in righteousness and justice. But we need training to become like Him, because we do not naturally think and act like Him. We are not brute beasts who are programmed by instinct; we are ignorant and deceived, and need to be trained by Him. Without humility, I will not accept how much I need to relearn or discover for the first time. Without humility, I will not admit that I need God's help to know His ways of leading and ruling over His creation. I want to be left alone to do things as I see fit, as fits my wants and wishes. But God's grand designs for me require so much training and retaining that it can feel oppressive at times. I am so far from what He wants that He has so much work to do to redevelop me, it can seem overwhelming. Even when I'm doing everything right, there can still be things I need to learn or grow in. The longer He takes to remake me, the greater His plans for me. That is a great thing, and I don't want to fight Him or become discouraged in the process. Why does He pay so much attention to me? Because He loves me and has great plans for me. I don't want to fight Him, but humble myself and submit to His plans for me, trusting in His goodness to me.