“Why did I not perish at birth, and die as I came from the womb?” (Job 3:11, NIV)
Always I want to explain my bogeys a shot or two late.
I want to say that the bogey came because the putt broke “the other way” or because this green was firmer than the rest and didn’t hold my pitch shot. In truth, most of my bogeys begin with the drive. I didn’t put the ball in a decent position to begin the hole, and I am left scrambling the rest of the way to the cup. Easy pars are far too underrated.
In a way, the prideful man is just like me. He doesn’t back up enough in the consideration of his life.
It is easy for one who has been successful to look at the strength of his hands or the renderings of his brain or the negotiations of his tongue and credit himself with much. I did this, he thinks. And when his thinking extends to others, the suggestion is that they simply did not do it—whatever it is—half as well as he did. If only they’d been as bright, as determined, as tenacious. Dumb fools.
What such a man forgets is precisely what Job remembered. You have to go back to the beginning.
In the beginning, a man does not choose his birth date. A man does not choose his parents. A man does not choose his hometown. A man does not choose his school. In the beginning, a man does not earn his own wages or pay his own bills. Job went on to ask rightly, “Why were there knees to receive me and breasts that I might be nursed?” Job remembered that in the beginning, he was given certain blessings that were not given to every man. Only from there, when the helpful sustained the helpless, did he progress to the success that was his.
It’s almost impossible to overvalue this kind of perspective. From it, we see God’s sovereign hand. We see our own limitations. And we learn the importance of mercy for others.
When Paul addressed the Athenian thinkers at the Aeropagus, he made the same case: “[God] determined the times set for [all people] and the exact places where they should live” (Acts 17:26). Paul used this declaration among polytheists to place the work of the God of heaven above all other gods. But we need those words just as much as our unbelieving friends. For in deferring to God’s preeminent sovereignty we find perspective, humility and compassion—all traits of the gospel enacted.
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Jeff Hopper
June 4, 2012
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