The Leviathan…A Lesson in Trust

This summer in our Vacation Bible School, we have been looking at the days of creation.  Our unique approach is going on Wednesday evenings throughout the summer. On this fifth Wednesday just before our final gala next week, our attention turned to man and dinosaurs. Our curriculum is published by Answers in Genesis (http://answersvbs.com/2012/).  In Bible time, the kids talked about behemoth and leviathan. During snack time, I recapped the Bible lesson. I was enthralled with the description of leviathan in Job 41.  Job has come through utter devastation … he lost his land, his children, his health, and his wife told him to get it over with to  just “curse God and die (the O.T.  equivalent of committing suicide, somewhere that he had committed for which God was judging him. Their tirades went on and on, and Job sought to vindicate himself. A much younger friend, Elihu also came along at the end, with clearer, yet imperfect understanding.  He rebuked Job for attempting to justify himself rather than seeking to glorify God.  Job cried out for a “daysman” (Job 9:33), i.e. an umpire, a mediator.  God finally moves on the scene with series of rhetorical questions fired rapidly at Job.  It is the ones about Leviathan that caught my attention.  The description of leviathan in Job 41 through God’s questions  gives pause … pretend for a moment you are on that lonely cliff … you have  unanswered questions about God’s dealings in your life … now you see God eyeball to eyeball… and He directs His  rhetorical questions to you:

·        Can you catch levitation with a hook like you would a fish?

·        Can you capture it and use it as a work animal like a horse or ox?

·        Would it make a nice house pet for your children to play with?   

·        Can you take it down with spears? (Ha! If you even try, there will be a battle you won’t soon forget 

·         And if no one messes with the leviathan, why do you as a puny person     question My direction in your life. I made this massive animal. Don’t you think I know what I’m doing?   (para. of NLT…Job 41:1-10).

The description goes on for several more verses, and it is this description and juxtaposition of it with God’s might and wisdom that finally breaks Job and brings him to repentance and to a deeper knowledge of God. The story ends in Job 42 as Jobs fortunes are restored by God and Job’s three friends are rebuked by God for wrongly judging him. So what I have learned? God is bigger than my pain. God is greater than human error and the ensuing guilt.  God wants my trust; for in a very real sense in my darkest hours to simply trust is to obey.