We have all sorts of names for the same phenomenon: back-seat driving, arm-chair quarterbacking, second-guesser…you get the idea. When Neil Anderson was the editor of the Gospel Advocate, he said that based on the letters, emails, and phone calls he got, he must be the only person in the world who didn’t know how to run his business! All of us have this tendency to question things over which we have no control.
There’s an interesting little line in one of David’s Psalms. Pay attention to the end of it: “O Lord, my heart is not lifted up; my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me.” (Psalm 131:1)
I wonder sometimes if we don’t set our eyes on things “too great” for our finite minds. We question God more than is healthy. We forget that his ways are infinitely higher than ours (Isaiah 55:9). Paul chastised the Corinthians by asking, “Who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” (1 Corinthians 2:16). I imagine after that part of the letter was read, there was silence–kind of like when God showed up and started asking questions at the end of Job.
God needed to humble Jeremiah, so he said to him, “If you have raced with men on foot, and they have wearied you, how will you compete with horses?” (Jeremiah 12:5) In other words, “Jeremiah, you are in over your head this time. You can’t keep up with me!” Paul again said, “Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight.” (Romans 12:16)
There are some conversations and questions that we really ought to let pass us by. Sometimes we just need to say, “That’s above my pay grade. I don’t know the answer, but I know the One who does!”