Job LXXX

 Give credit where credit is due. Job’s friends sat with him in silence for seven days, then listened as he poured out the travail of his heart without interrupting him or trying to stimmy him, but now, Eliphaz the Temanite took up the charge and addressed him. Even so, his first question was, “If one attempts a word with you, will you become weary?”

It’s evident that Job’s friends respected him, not so much through their words but through their actions. Even when planning to push back on Job’s words, Eliphaz deferred to him in a manner reminiscent of a little brother attempting to broach a difficult subject with an older one.

It’s likewise evident that these friends had a long history and knew of each other’s exploits because the first thing Eliphaz attempts to remind Job of was all the times he’d instructed others and strengthened weak hands. Job had not insulated and isolated himself. He’d not removed himself from the lives of those around him even though he’d been the greatest of all the people of the East. He’d neither looked down on his contemporaries nor had an air of superiority about him because of his wealth, but throughout his years, his words had upheld he who was stumbling, and he’d strengthened the feeble knees.

Now it was his turn to be on the receiving end of encouragement, of strengthening, of needing his hands to be strengthened, and it was a new and uncomfortable position for him to be in. Within any family or congregation, there will be those who are always encouraging and those constantly in need of encouragement. If you think on it for any length of time, you can readily divide the people you know into one of these two groups.

And this is where I can obfuscate or generalize, and it would be easier for me to do it, but I must admit I’m one of the people in the former category for whom it is very difficult to ask for help, accept help, or admit that I need encouragement on occasion. No, it has nothing to do with toxic masculinity, a modern-day contrivance meant to feminize men to the point of androgyny, or some ever-present need to be a rock for everyone around me; it’s just how it’s always been, and I’ve gotten accustomed to it to the point of being uncomfortable in any other role.

It’s not something I signed up for or volunteered for, but rather something I fell into from a young age. Being the first to learn English in my family when we first came to America, I was always called upon to be the fixer. Whether calling the electric company for an explanation about an uncommonly large bill or dealing with insurance agents after someone hit our car in a parking lot, signing my brothers up for the lunch program at school, or translating my grandfather’s life story, whenever there was a problem, Mike was expected to be an integral part of the resolution even though he was not yet a teenager at the time.

It forced me to forfeit a childhood and grow up before my time, but sometimes, you don’t have a choice in how your life plays out; you just hang on for the ride and hope it’s not too bumpy. I didn’t mind it then, and I don’t mind it now, but it has made me almost incapable of being vulnerable enough to show it when I need encouragement. Somehow, my wife always knows, but wives always do. Other than her, and perhaps my little brother on occasion, no one can tell.

When the ones always doing the encouraging come to the point of needing encouragement themselves, it can be discombobulating and odd because they’ve never been on that side of the aisle. They’ve never needed to hear words of encouragement, or having to have their hands strengthened, and the idea of depending on the strength of others because their own strength has failed them is foreign to them.

As the song goes, everybody needs somebody sometimes, and for some of us, the hardest part is acknowledging the need and having the requisite humility to allow someone to meet it. It’s not as though Job could wave off his friends and insist it wasn’t as bad as it looked. He’d already poured his pain out before them, so now all he could do was sit and listen.

Given that Job’s friends were just as in the dark about why he was going through the trial he was going through as he was, they’d concluded that Job had done something to stir the ire of God against him or that he had sinned. It’s the conclusion most people jump to when they hear of someone’s misfortune or hardship, and they’re quick to voice their opinion whenever called upon to do so. More often than not, they’ll voice their opinion even if no one asked for it because they deem their wisdom indispensable.

Granted, there are situations people go through as a direct consequence of their sin or rebellion, but that is neither a trial nor a test. It’s the crossroad where actions meet the consequences thereof, and what many who get exposed try to do is repurpose their sin and call it a trial in the hope of garnering sympathy.

Because they had never run across someone who had been brought so low as to curse the day of their birth, nor someone for whom their situation was not the direct result of their sinful ways, Job’s friends assumed there was some hidden sin he had yet to confess, or something he’d done which had angered God to the point of causing him to sit on an ash heap and scratch at himself with a potsherd.

Assuming that you know the reason behind someone’s trial is akin to declaring yourself to be omniscient, and we know that only God is all-knowing because His word says as much. What’s worse is that oftentimes, we are so certain of our conclusion that even when it is proven to be wrong, we nevertheless cling to it because we think admitting otherwise would somehow diminish us. If you’ve ever wondered how a self-righteous, sanctimonious, self-aggrandizing, and unloving spirit has its genesis, now you know.

Just because we see someone going through a fiery trial, we cannot automatically assume they have sinned or rebelled against God. It’s a lesson worth learning and applying lest others assume likewise when we ourselves are being tested.  

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.