(October 18, 2014)
Elihu
is fast becoming one of my heroes in the scriptures – I know so little about
him, but to have acquired his wisdom at his young age he must have been an
impressive man. In these chapters, Elihu
highlights something that I have recently discovered but illustrates a
consequence of it that I hadn’t imagined.
After
fasting recently, I went to the Lord in prayer and asked Him for a blessing I
felt in need of, and in the course of my prayer told Him that I had fasted for
Him and thus I had hopes that I would receive the blessing I sought (sort of a
Divine quid pro quo).
The Lord gently informed me of my error
in thinking – it became obvious that my fasting really did nothing to benefit
God, and was instead designed to benefit me.
Elihu
builds on that and develops some of the consequences. There is no righteous act that we can perform
that benefits God – anything that we do He could have accomplished at a word
(and likely far better than we did it). Likewise, our sins do not negatively affect
Him at all – if He was injured by our sins, He could simply remove us from this
Earth again at a word.
The
consequence of this, however, is something absolutely amazing. I always knew intellectually that the Lord
needs nothing from me, but I felt it as I read and thought about Elihu’s words
in these chapters. And if He needed
nothing from us, then why His work and sacrifice on our behalf? Love, of course – only His love.
It
struck me how far beyond me that God is. It also struck me how grateful I ought to be
that God, with all of His power and majesty and His unlimited virtue cares
enough for me to care for me (even though I am unable to help Him in any way) –
I really begin to get a glimpse of Divine charity.
I feel
like I am poorly expressing something that is very meaningful.
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