This was a strange question for Job to ask
of the Lord. He felt himself to be too insignificant to be so strictly
watched and chastened, and he hoped that he was not so unruly as to need
to be so restrained. The enquiry was natural from one surrounded with
such insupportable miseries, but after all, it is capable of a very
humbling answer. It is true man is not the sea, but he is even more
troublesome and unruly. The sea obediently respects its boundary, and
though it be but a belt of sand, it does not overleap the limit. Mighty
as it is, it hears the divine hitherto, and when most raging with
tempest it respects the word; but self-willed man defies heaven and
oppresses earth, neither is there any end to this rebellious rage. The
sea, obedient to the moon, ebbs and flows with ceaseless regularity, and
thus renders an active as well as a passive obedience; but man,
restless beyond his sphere, sleeps within the lines of duty, indolent
where he should be active. He will neither come nor go at the divine
command, but sullenly prefers to do what he should not, and to leave
undone that which is required of him. Every drop in the ocean, every
beaded bubble, and every yeasty foam-flake, every shell and pebble, feel
the power of law, and yield or move at once. O that our nature were but
one thousandth part as much conformed to the will of God! We call the
sea fickle and false, but how constant it is! Since our fathers’ days,
and the old time before them, the sea is where it was, beating on the
same cliffs to the same tune; we know where to find it, it forsakes not
its bed, and changes not in its ceaseless boom; but where is man-vain,
fickle man? Can the wise man guess by what folly he will next be seduced
from his obedience? We need more watching than the billowy sea, and are
far more rebellious. Lord, rule us for thine own glory. Amen.
This devotion was taken from The Apostle's Bible app.
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