Job LXXI

 Recent studies have shown that the loneliest people on the planet live in the biggest cities. The more skyscrapers, apartment buildings, businesses, restaurants, subways, and the hustle and bustle of everyday life one is surrounded by, the lonelier and more detached they seem to be. It’s counterintuitive to the point of being illogical when you think about it. One would expect that the more they’re surrounded by other people, the less lonely they’ll be because the opportunity to make new friends is compounded with every hundred or so individuals within a certain radius.

Evidently, this is not the case. You’re more likely to make friends in a small, out-of-the-way town in the middle of South Dakota than you are living in Manhattan surrounded by all the other worker bees trying to get ahead and living in a world of their own. The one word that came up over and over again when people who participated in these studies were asked why they thought this was the case was community. The smaller the town you live in, the likelier it is that there is a strong sense of community, with neighbors helping neighbors rather than trying to set their cat on fire because it relieved itself on their lawn.

One of the devil’s biggest goals is to separate and discombobulate the body of Christ to the point that we are no longer one body but a tub full of body parts independent of each other, trying to do on our own only what an entire body can accomplish. A healthy body is interdependent upon all its members. Although the head may think itself of paramount importance, it needs the fingers and the hand to feed it in order to survive. The hands and fingers need the feet to take them to where the food is, the hands and feet need the eyes and the nose to tell them where the food is and if it’s edible, and once the food is masticated, making use of the mouth, the teeth and the throat, the digestive system has to work properly for the body to extract the necessary nutrients, and eliminate the rest.

Every time we touch upon this subject, there is bound to be someone who writes in insisting that no church body is good enough for them or that they have a hard time finding a fellowship, but lest we forget, where two or three are gathered in His name, He is there. I’ve been to church meetings in barns, garages, living rooms, and someone’s basement, where the presence of God was more evident than in any multi-million-dollar sanctuary I’ve ever come across. Just as the clothes don’t make the man, and I know that’s contrary to the modern adage but is nevertheless true, the opulence of the building or the size thereof doesn’t make the body.

Some of the scummiest, most disingenuous, duplicitous, underhanded, self-serving, callous people I’ve ever encountered were very well dressed, replete with the mandatory silk tie and the matching pocket square. Lawyers come to mind, and unfortunately, I’ve had to deal with a handful of those throughout my life.

Conversely, some of the most honest, down-to-earth, empathetic people I’ve been graced to know likely had one suit hanging in their closet, and that was there just in case they went to the great beyond and needed something to be buried in. When I get around to writing my will, I will specify that I want to be buried in shorts and the raggedy shirt I wear most mornings as I sit and write. No, clothes don’t make a man; his character and the content thereof, his principles, his honesty, and his consistency are what make a man.

We get taken in by the packaging and never bother to check what’s inside the box. Sure, the wrapping paper and the bows are nice to look at, but when it comes down to it, it’s what’s inside that gives it value.

Shortly after the revolution in Romania, we began traveling back to the homeland to help where we could and as we were able. My grandfather’s first trip back was in the early part of 1990, and we paid the extra cost for ten suitcases worth of Bibles to be shipped along on his flight. Those Bibles had been sitting in the suitcases for close to a year, taking up a corner of our already cramped apartment’s living room because God had told him he’d be going back and he’d be bringing Bibles along.

One of the many things I respected about my grandfather was his absolute and unwavering trust in God. If God told him to do something, he set his hand to the plow, not wondering how what he was told would come about or fretting about the impossibility of it in the present moment. Our entire family had been deported with specific orders never to return on pain of death. When he purchased the Bibles and the suitcases, the communists were still in power, and there wasn’t even a stirring among the populace, never mind a full-blown revolution.

After his first trip back, the day he arrived in Fullerton, he sat the family down and told us we’d be building churches in Romania. Although, at the time, we didn’t have the money, the money came in, and the next hurdle was getting it to Romania. This was before wire transfers were available since the country was still in upheaval and years before international banks hungry for profit opened up branches in-country. The only way to get the money into the country to buy the materials we would need for the churches God had told him to build was to carry cash.

To look at him, in his plaid shirt and baggy wool pants, no one would have thought this man was carrying six figures in US legal tender on his person, yet he was. If clothes made the man and hinted at his value, one would likelier hand him a dollar to buy himself a cup of tea than conclude he was carrying enough coin to buy an entire apartment building with money to spare in those days. We ended up building close to sixty churches throughout Romania in the early years after the revolution because the dollar went a long way back then, and the labor force was plentiful.

God sees what men cannot, and He judges by His standard rather than men’s standards. Never allow someone’s appearance to determine how you view them or the sort of value you assign to them. Whether scruffy, unkempt, well-dressed, or otherwise, we are all children of God. Too often, we let the wrapping dictate our reaction to someone long before what’s inside can come to the fore and present itself.

No one walking by, likely giving him a wide berth, would have thought that Job was a blameless and upright man whom God favored; it would have been the furthest thought from their mind. If they’d known of him before his testing, when he was the greatest people of the East, their likely reaction would have been to wonder what he had done to displease God so that he had come to such ruin. It’s not so much not trusting what your eyes see; it’s passing judgment based on what your eyes alone see that’s the problem.   

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.