While we were in Hawaii for my father’s funeral, a hurricane moved close to the Islands . It was not close enough to cause evacuations, but it was close enough to cause spectacular and dangerous surf. The waves were most impressive while we were on Kauai. Locals said that it had been 30 years since waves that massive. A nearby blowhole shot over 200 feet into the air and people gathered on a cliff to watch.

It is hard to do justice to the majesty of waves in photos, but the photo below was taken by me standing on the shore. The waves were at least 20 feet tall, taller than the wave pictured above. I could tell this because jet skis towed a few expert surfers out beyond the breakers to catch the waves which easily dwarfed surfers under foamy crowns as they rushed toward shore.

I loved watching the waves rise up, especially in that moment before they broke, when light shown through the stunning blue-green sometimes illuminating fish, trees and other debris. The intense beauty was augmented by the intense fear welling up within me and everyone else gathered to watch the spectacle.

We joined both tourists and locals standing on a paved road lined with a low rock wall that stuck out to launch boats into the bay. On the bay side of the road, sea turtles took refuge from the waves and the sharks who patrolled the rough water. Turning toward the sea side, all of us simply stared in awe at the display. The rock wall had a three foot hole torn in it by a recent wave. Those gathered wondered whether the next wave might rush through to grab us. Some kept to higher ground while others realized the unlikelihood of that possibility and remained on the road- always keeping a wary eye on the hole in the wall. The broken wall and continuing pounding waves raised both respect and fear.

There is something about this kind of fear/awe that is deeply instinctual. It reminds us of God. When we get too comfortable with Jesus as our friend and helper, God has a way of reminding us that God is God and we are not. The book of Job is a good example of this.

Job is not a historical book. you can tell, in part, because it begins with the phrase, “There was once a man in the land of Ur whose name was Job.” (Similar to “once upon a time…”)

The book is written like a play with distinct scenes. Job is a man whom God respects. God boasts about him to Satan who counters that Job is only good because God has blessed him. So, in order to prove Satan wrong, God allows Satan to take everything away from Job. Four tragedies follow immediately from the North, South, East and West. He loses his animals, servants, and even his own children to storms of fire, raiders from other lands and a great wind. Rather than curse God, Job tears his clothes and accepts his loss saying “the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” (Job 2:21) The book goes on to show how Job’s friends try to comfort him and attempt to figure out why this has happened. Their conclusion is that Job must have sinned to anger God and thus deserve punishment. But Job stands his ground. He knows he has not sinned and he turns to God to complain.

Eventually, God answers Job directly through a whirlwind. But his answer is not the comforting voice we might expect or hope for. God’s first words are, “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Gird up your loins like a man, and I will question you, and you shall declare to me.” (Job 38:2-3).

Throughout chapter 38, God reminds Job that he doesn’t know anything about anything with a dripping sarcastic tone… “Have you entered into the springs of the sea, or walked the recesses of the deep?” (38: 16), “Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth? Declare, if you know all this.”(38:18) “Have you entered the storehouses of the snow or hail”… or have you cut a channel for the torrents of rain and a way for the thunderbolt, or cause flood waters to come.

God goes on to say that God knows when mountain goats and deer give birth, that God set the wild ass free appreciating that it doesn’t respond to human commands. God lifts up the ostrich as a stupid animal because “God has made it forget wisdom, and given it no share in understanding” (v. 17) but at the same time “When it spreads its plumes aloft, it laughs at the horse and its rider.”(v. 18) God points to Behemoth (probably a hippo) with strength like lions and bones like tubes of bronze. He speaks of being able to draw out Leviathan with a fishhook and mocks Job calling on him to try and capture it. God goes on admiring Leviathan (some kind of massive, wild, fire breathing sea creature) for all of Chapter 41 ending by saying that there is no equal on earth. This taunting goes on for some time. It doesn’t sound like the loving God I’ve been raised to know.

But, standing on the beach that day - only days after my father’s service, I was reminded of God’s extraordinary majesty and my own perspective and concerns felt trivial. I cannot fathom the ways of life and death. I do not have a third person’s perspective on all of the universe at once and I cannot see my world from beyond time.

When I shrink the world in to something I feel like I can manage, I tend to be like Job and his friends. I tend to expect God to act the way God should act - dispensing justice and fairness the way I see fit. It is very hard for me to accept that I don’t know enough to judge God. But then life continues and I am reminded (usually painfully) that my perspective is quite limited.

God loves us and wants to be known by us. God urges us to come before God in prayer over and over. This was one reason Jesus gave us the “Our Father” prayer. But God is not a machine programmed to respond to our prayer requests, nor is God simply a benevolent father hovering over his children. While we can always turn to God and God is always present, there is a lot more to God than meets our eye. As God says through the prophet Isaiah: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8-9)

I have found that it is good to remind myself of that fact so that God doesn’t have to remind me. I’ve learned the hard way that, for the one receiving it, God’s reminder of God’s majesty is often not a pleasant experience.

Raging Waves

Down the Mountain

Hanging Out with God