Do you find it somewhat odd how people seem to think that God needs help? That if He needed they would help Him to order the world or in the least they could sure help God know what is best for themselves!
...Or more likely have you found that at times peoples view of God is actually defined by their understanding.
We know that God is infintely and uniquely different than we are... and that truly we only know anything about God because He chose to reveal Himself to us. Step back from the discussion for just a moment and think, "what would you know about God if he chose to remain silent and un-involved.
However, because our culture has been saturated with all kinds of "God-talk" over the past several decades we have begun by our own motives and agenda to actually put together our own god. Like someone who takes a jig-saw puzzle and creates for themselves a picture that shows no relationship to the original intended picture. We have become adept at forcing pieces together that never were meant to be together and in the end our cardboard picture is our own creation. As spiritual people both Christians and non-Christians we have formed a god of our own, a god that fits what we want, expect or desire. While this god will almost never take physical form it is a form of idolatry nontheless. Where we run into trouble is when this creation of ours fails to live up to our created expectations, or wishes, or it flat just doesn't work. Chances are at this point we give up on any form of god; ours or the True One. We shake our heads and proclaim " that we have had it with anything conceptually or real that resembles deity".
Is this not the hieght of foolishness that Jobs three friends display in their sermons found in the book of Job. If you read well and carefully you will find that they have God figured out and pinned down. But many of their conclusions are in fact in error. In Job 4:7 Eliphaz maintains that God always blesses the righteous and in Job 20:5 Zophar speaks that God always punishes the wicked. However, there are many many instances when God does quite the opposite, at least temporally. Job is in fact a case where the righteous is found to be "afflicted" but not for sin. God just stepped out of Eliphaz's and Zophar's proverbial box. Abraham is a case whereby God bestows tremendous wealth on him while he is dancing about from his lie about his wife Sarai. (Gen. 12:10-20)
Devotional interaction: Read Job 4:7 & 20:5 Here you find Job's 3 "friends" telling him without variation that God punishes the wicked and the innocent are never afflicted. (this world view is not biblical)
Now notice God's view of Jobs 3 friends in Job 38:1-2 and 42:7-9.
Notice finally that God declares that He will not be confined to the simple games of men. That He is in control of all things and administers them as he wishes. Read Job 38:1-41 List the attributes that God reveals about himself to Job.
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