Job 39:1-2  “Do you know when the mountain goats give birth? Do you watch when the doe bears her fawn? Do you count the months till they bear? Do you know the time they give birth?    

    With Thanksgiving in our rearview mirror, our attention turns fully to the Christmas season. As a child, I remember the great anticipation of the big day! In my home, though there would be presents under the tree with a gift tag that read, “From Santa”, I knew that my parents were responsible. But I didn’t really know what that responsibility meant until I was on my own. Even now, I can fully admit, I am somewhat ignorant of all that it takes to arrive at the big day! (Thanks to Rachel!)

    For close to forty chapters, Job has been hearing from four friends - his ‘comforters’. He has listened while they took turns analy-zing just why he has come to his current sorry state. He has joined in and tried to assure them that he has done nothing wrong, nothing to warrant God’s heavy hand upon him. Now, God has a turn!

    In today’s passage, and the entire chapter, God uses the animal kingdom as an illustration. He mentions ostriches and storks, horses and wild oxen, and others. He asks Job a series of questions that really began in the previous chapter, but all have the same obvious answer, “no.” But when he asks about the mountain goats, I wonder if that hit home? Job had previously been famously wealthy. Much of his wealth was in livestock. He had enormous herds. He would have considered himself very knowledgeable in the ways of goats. But, he had so many animals that he couldn’t possibly care for them himself. So even in his own hearts, he didn’t know when they gave birth. 

    God is at work in the world in ways that most of us never stop to consider. His hand is on our lives. We just had Thanksgiving, but I doubt if any of us were even a fraction as thankful as we should have been! Most of us live our lives as a child waiting on Christmas, hopeful, a little impatient, but mostly ignorant of all that’s going on to make things happen. 

    On this first Monday of the Christmas season maybe we should pause to consider just how much God has done and is doing in our lives that we really never even think about. And then we should ask what He’d like us to do in return!

Blessings,

Pastor Russ