Job LXXXVII

 When we are unaware of the possibility, perhaps even the probability of having our faith tested, of being sifted, of going through the valleys of life that make us cling to God all the more, while all seems pleasant and uncomplicated, while we are not being buffeted and the safety nets we’ve built for ourselves still hold ignorance may truly seem like bliss. It’s like the folks who don’t file taxes for years on end, thinking they’ve gotten one over on the rest of us, that they’ve found a loophole, or have discovered a heretofore unknown cheat code, only to get a knock on their door from a serious looking individual informing them that their wages have been garnered, and they own back taxes to the tune of six figures. I’m sure it was fun while it lasted, but the music eventually stops, and the reckoning commences.

For those living in the land of fantasy where the peaches are always perfectly ripe, the sun is always shining, and no ill or trial can ever be visited upon them, it’s all sunshine and lollipops until it’s not. Don’t get me wrong, if it wasn’t such dangerously faulty logic, it would be fun to entertain.

Once in a great while, we’ll show up for church, call money down from heaven, get a pat on the back for showing up, and go on about our lives unencumbered by the constraints of righteousness or holiness unto God. Building up our most holy faith sounds like too much work, so we’ll pay the fifty bucks per month to get an AI chatbot to spend time with God on our behalf, and that way, we won’t have to miss our tee time.

I’m still waiting for the sin eaters to make a comeback, but given the trajectory the modern-day church is headed in, it’s only a matter of time.

If one is not aware that trials, testing, and hardships are part of the Christian walk, when they make their presence felt, they will either retreat or be frozen to the spot, not knowing what to do and fearful that any course of action may only exacerbate the situation.

There is a reason we are repeatedly warned via Scripture that we have an enemy, that he seeks our destruction, and that he is ruthless and single-minded in his desire to keep us from finishing well. Anyone not aware of this hasn’t been reading their Bible or has been taught that it’s within their purview to ignore the parts of it they don’t like.

Once in a while, you hear stories of starry-eyed tourists who travel to dangerous corners of the world trying to prove the warnings wrong and unfounded only to end up dead in a ditch, butchered like so much cattle, because ignoring reality doesn’t change the fundamental nature of it, and pretending as though something does not exist doesn’t make it so. This isn’t the Matrix; you can’t just tell yourself there’s no devil and make that your reality.

It’s not as though some of the words Eliphaz spoke weren’t beautiful, true, and even poetic, words that resonate to this day in their delivery, but not all true and beautiful words apply to a given situation. You can have an entire tool bag full of tools, but if you don’t have the right tool for the job, you still lack what is necessary for the current situation. It goes without saying that Eliphaz was a wordsmith. It’s also undeniable that he was an intelligent man who was a deep thinker and pondered the deeper truths of his existence, but in the current situation, watching his friend Job suffer both physically and emotionally, he did not possess the right tools to remedy the situation. It’s no slight on him; sometimes, the only one who can heal a broken heart and give hope is God, and no matter who it is standing before us, either trying to comfort or rebuke us, they fall short.

If you’ve ever been in a situation where you’ve tried your best to lend a hand, be a support, bring comfort, or give wise counsel and knew yourself to have fallen short of the mark, it wasn’t you, or your inability to be a good friend in due season, it was the fact that only God could have put back together the pieces that were shattered.

It’s one thing to give good counsel, and it goes unheeded; it’s another when the counsel you give falls short in some way. You can’t help but feel responsible in some capacity, and although I’ve gotten better about beating myself up over being unable to be of help in certain situations, it still gets to me. It used to wreck me utterly. Although I was not personally responsible for the situation the individual found themselves in, being unable to do anything to fix it made me feel like a failure.

The worst by far is wayward children and broken marriages. You sit down with the individual and go through the Biblical steps required for healing; they go through them, and though they prayed, wept, and showered their progeny with love, their hearts are still hard, and the spouse still refuses to reconcile. What more can I do? They would ask pleadingly, and all I could offer was to repeat the steps because you can’t change someone’s heart; only God can.

I had to humble myself enough to come to terms with the reality that my abilities were limited, that I’d done all I could, and must now surrender it to God and allow Him to have His way in the matter. Not every story has a happy ending. Not every prodigal finds their way back home; not every marriage can be put back together, and I discovered that my trying to make it so by sheer will alone was a folly of the worst kind. There is a difference between God can and God will, and we cannot conflate the two.

As Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego stood before the raging flames of the furnace, their answer to the king wasn’t that God would surely deliver them from the burning fiery furnace but that He was able to. Whether He did or not was solely up to Him. One thing was certain, and three young men said as much; one way or another, they would be delivered from the king’s hand that day.

We cannot presume that our deliverance will come by being spared the flames. In many an instance, our deliverance comes by standing in the fire.  

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.