He loads the thick cloud with moisture; the clouds scatter his lightning. They turn around and around by his guidance, to accomplish all that he commands them on the face of the habitable world. Whether for correction or for his land or for love, he causes it to happen.
– Job 37:11–13
This is so good, a God-centered picture of rain. When you see rain around you, realize that God is causing it to happen. And there’s a lot we could talk about there, just God’s sovereign rule and rain over everything in creation. But I want to hone in on verse 13 here when Elihu, who’s the one who’s saying these words, talks about God’s different purposes with rain. He says, “Whether for correction or for his land or for love, he causes it to happen.”
Job 37:11–13 reminds us we can trust how God rules this world.
So Elihu just lists out three potential purposes God may have in sending rain. He may send it for correction in some way. So a storm might be a picture of his discipline. Or for love. Rain is obviously a picture of his blessing on the land for fruit, which he says, “Or just for his land.” It may not be for correction in our lives or for love specifically toward us. It may just be for the land’s sake.
So God sends rain for different purposes. And the whole picture here in Job 37 is we can trust that God has many different purposes and the many things he sovereignly oversees in the world, and we can trust that ultimately his purposes are good. For all those who know him and worship him and walk with him, for those who are his people, we can trust that when things happen in our lives, God may be carrying out a corrective purpose through those things. He may be showing his love toward us in a particular way through those things.
Or, don’t forget, you and I are not at the center of the universe. Everything God does does not revolve around us. Realize there are things God does in our lives for the sake of others, and there are things God does in others’ lives for our sake. And there are things God does in the world for his sake alone.
Job 37:11–13 reminds us to trust God even when we don’t understand.
God’s purposes are many, and God’s purposes are good. That’s the takeaway from Job 37:13, this picture of the rain that God always has purposes he’s accomplishing, that he has many different purposes he’s accomplishing at many different times, in our lives, in others’ lives, and in the world around us. And all who know God, who worship God, who walk with God, can trust that all the different purposes he’s working out are good for us.
And so we pray, God. We praise you for your sovereignty over all things, including the rain and thunder, and lightning. We praise you that not one drop of rain falls to the ground apart from your sovereign hand, causing it to happen. We praise you for that reality in every inch of creation, for your sovereign rule and reign over it all.
And God, we praise you for all the good purposes you are accomplishing. Even in things we don’t understand. Especially in things we don’t understand. I just think about Job wondering, “Why is this happening?” I think about Joseph in Genesis wondering, “Why is this happening? Why I’ve been betrayed by my brothers, thrown into prison?” And yet you were accomplishing good purposes even in your sovereign reign over evil, turning it into good, and you were accomplishing good purposes in Job’s life.
This verse encourages us to align our lives with God’s ultimate redemptive purpose.
So help us to believe. Help us to trust that in everything we walk through, you are sovereign over all things, and you are trustworthy, and your purposes are good, and we can trust in you and know that all of your purposes will not only be accomplished, but will be good for us. And not just for us, for all the peoples of the world, all the nations, tribes, languages.
Oh God, help us to realize that your purposes don’t just revolve around us, that you are doing an infinite number of things in others’ lives around us, and all to the end that people from every nation and tribe and tongue and language will gather around your throne and give you praise for your salvation. We know this is your ultimate purpose. So God, help us to live today and align it with that ultimate purpose.
God, we pray you’d help us to glorify you amidst whatever we’re walking through. Use whatever circumstances we are facing in our lives to bring glory to your name and to point others to you and your good purposes, your trustworthiness.
Prayer for the Perka People
And God, we pray that you would accomplish your purpose among all the nations. We pray for the Perka people of India today, this Telugu-speaking Hindu people group, God, 208,000 of them with little to no knowledge of the gospel, hardly any, if any, believers at all.
God, we pray for the salvation, for your saving purposes to be accomplished among the Perka people. Please, work the lives of Christians in India and Christians outside of India to work to get the gospel, see your purpose, your saving purpose known among the Perka people. Please may it be so.
God, we pray all this according to your Word in Job 37:11–13 to you, the Lord of the rain. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
David Platt serves as a Lead Pastor for McLean Bible Church. He is also the Founder of Radical, an organization that makes Jesus known among the nations.
David received his B.A. from the University of Georgia and M.Div., Th.M., and Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. Some of his published works include Radical, Radical Together, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Don’t Hold Back, and How to Read the Bible.
He lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area with his wife and children.
