He spreads out the northern skies over empty space;
he suspends the earth over nothing.
He wraps up the waters in his clouds,
yet the clouds do not burst under their weight.
He covers the face of the full moon,
spreading his clouds over it.
He marks out the horizon on the face of the waters
for a boundary between light and darkness.
The pillars of the heavens quake,
aghast at his rebuke.
By his power he churned up the sea;
by his wisdom he cut Rahab to pieces.
By his breath the skies became fair;
his hand pierced the gliding serpent.
And these are but the outer fringe of his works;
how faint the whisper we hear of him!
Who then can understand the thunder of his power?
Job 26:7-14
Ever since I was a little girl, I've visited the Canterbury Museum in my hometown, Christchurch, and looked at the words inscribed over the door: "Lo, these are parts of his ways, but how little a portion is heard of him."
I didn't know they came from the Bible until quite recently, when I was reading through Job and suddenly - despite the vast differences between the NIV and KJV versions - I twigged.
I think it's a wonderful concept to associate with something like a museum. All the wonders you can crowd inside a building are an infinitesimal fraction of the wonder of the universe - and yet they all communicate something of the boundless creator. The world is big, the museum is small, but it opens up minds and possibilities nonetheless.
But I've also been thinking about this passage in terms of what comes towards the end of verse 14: "Who then can understand the thunder of his power?"
Well, certainly not me.
My mind is tiny.
And yet the more I try to compute in my mind the glory of God with his journey to live with us in humility and self-sacrifice, the more I find I am rewarded, with glimpses of something beyond words. I am going to try, on this blog, to record my progress. I might not succeed very well, but I am going to challenge myself to write on here at least once a week. I invite you to join me.
(Before now, I have written about my Christian life on a different blog, called God is nice and he likes me. I wanted to change to a different forum because I was beginning to feel uncomfortable about the slightly saccharine title and its implication that God is a pleasant old man with whom my associations are neutral. I didn't mean it to imply that - in fact, it was a very useful concept for me to hold onto whenever I struggled with the idea that God could possibly love me - and yet I think it has outworn itself for me as a blog title. So here I am.)
