We hear God addressing Job and responding to his complaints about his treatment by God. How often do we complain about our difficulties and blame God for our problems? No matter what is not going right in our lives, who are we to tell God he has made mistakes? We cannot put the blame on God. We tend to forget that God has two wills, His manifest will, which is when He deems something to occur and it does, and His permissive will, which is when He allows things to happen even if He doesn’t like the happening or the results. (For those concerned about the masculine pronouns, I defer to the Hebrew Scriptures from which the story of Job comes.)
The Psalm sets up the transition from the first reading to the Gospel reading.
Paul reminds us of our calling to live in such a way as to demonstrate our commitment to Jesus, because we are called to live no longer live for ourselves “but for him who for our sake died and was raised”. Do we truly live is such a way as to set aside our selfish desires and wants in favor of what God is calling us to be and to do?
This story of the storm on the lake and the disciples’ response is a perfect example of the Gospel’s writer being familiar with Sacred Scriptures. Pulling from today’s Psalm the story reiterates the divine nature of Jesus. A nature that can control not only the healing of peoples but also the wind and the waves. This brings us back to the question of “Who are we to tell God how things are to be done?” When we ponder God’s permissive will, we need to keep in mind that just because God allows nature, and humans, to do things not to his liking, it doesn’t mean God wanted such things to happen. Sin entered the world though human actions and remains in world continuing to cause undesirable results.
Countenance of God 