I INVENTED IT

         Willard S. Boyle, Nobel Prize winner in physics, was the co-inventor of the “electronic eye” behind the digital camera and the Hubble telescope. He was in the market for a new digital camera and visited a store in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The salesman tried to explain the complexity of the camera to Boyle, but stopped because he felt it was too complicated for him to understand. Boyle then bluntly said to the salesman: “No need to explain. I invented it.”

After God allowed Satan to test Job by taking away his family, his health, and his possessions (Job 1–2), Job lamented the day of his birth (ch. 3). In the following chapters, Job questioned why God would allow him to endure so much suffering. Then with divine bluntness, God reminded Job that He “invented” life and created the world (chs. 38–41). God invited him to rethink what he had said. In drawing attention to His sovereign power and the depth of His wisdom displayed everywhere on earth (38:4-41), God exposed the immensity of Job’s ignorance.

If we’re tempted to tell God how life should work, let’s remember He invented it! May He help us to humbly acknowledge our ignorance and to rely on Him—the Creator of the universe.

To understand God is impossible,
but to worship Him is imperative. (RBC)