Job CIX

 Every conclusion Bildad came to was through the prism of the physical. Everything was filtered through human understanding, making no allowance for the possibility that something other, something more, or something different was going on. He lived in a world of black and white with no gray areas to be had, and everything had to have a logical explanation that he could decipher, given enough brain power.

Your sons must have sinned; ergo, God cast them away for their transgression. God has not awakened for you and prospered your rightful dwelling place; ergo, you are not pure and upright.

To Bildad, everything had a simple explanation, and the simplest, most appropriate explanation he came up with is that Job had some hidden sin he was unwilling to confess. This perspective is important in the context of suffering and faith, as it raises the question of whether suffering is always a result of personal sin. Job’s travails show us that it’s not, and we would be remiss if we did not consider the complexity of suffering in the context of faith.

What did you do? Nothing. Well, you must have done something. But I didn’t. Now you’re just lying and putting on an air of spiritual superiority, aren’t you? Job had months to go through every chapter of his life to pinpoint where he had erred, where he had displeased God, or sinned in some form or fashion. He was not above repenting had he discovered something heretofore overlooked, but there was nothing, and not knowing why this had befallen him was an added layer of constant grief.

Suffering due to something you know yourself to be guilty of and suffering while knowing you are innocent of what you’re being accused of doing have different mental impacts. As the kids like to say, it hits differently. I did the crime, now I’m doing the time, and that’s the way it is. You make your peace with the reality that, on some level, your punishment is deserved, and although you might have liked it otherwise, you understand why you find yourself in your current predicament. But if you’re in a cage waiting for someone to bring you a cup of water, knowing that you’ve done nothing to deserve your current lot, the injustice of it weighs as heavily on one’s countenance as the situation itself.

It is said that if you take five individuals, accuse them of the same crime, and put them all in a jail cell, the one who goes to sleep is the guilty party because he knows he’s been caught and might as well get some rest. The innocent, those not guilty of the crime they’ve been accused of, tend to pace back and forth, decry their guilt, insist upon their innocence, and plead with their jailors to hear them out. This concept of ‘the innocent’ is crucial in understanding the mental impacts of suffering, as it highlights the psychological turmoil of being falsely accused and the desperate plea for justice in the face of suffering.

Job 8:8-10, “For inquire, please, of the former age, and consider the things discovered by the fathers; For we were born yesterday, and know nothing, because our days on earth are a shadow. Will they not teach you and tell you, and utter words from their heart?”

If Bildad, who likely predated the Patriarchs, could say that Job should consider the things discovered by the fathers, how much more do we have to look back on and glean understanding from? There is no viable excuse for any believer in our day and age to be ignorant of God, His will, His purpose, and His nature. We could excuse it, perhaps, in those of Job’s generation, given the limited availability of historical data and the lack of proliferation of printed materials, but even Bildad pointed out that what they had thus far learned from the fathers was enough to shape and form some sort of understanding, partial though it was.

I would be remiss if, in discussing Joseph and his journey from the mountaintop to the valley, back to the mountaintop, then the valley, then the mountaintop again, I did not mention his father Jacob, whom God Himself declared He loved. No small thing to be loved by God, yet for eighteen years, Jacob lived with the belief that Joseph, his beloved son, was dead. He carried the burden of Joseph being torn apart by wild beasts for longer than Joseph had been alive when he thought he’d lost him, and never once did God whisper in Jacob’s ear, “Do not despair; he lives.”

Imagine the weight that would have been lifted from Jacob’s shoulders upon hearing that one sentence. Imagine the relief, the joy, the utter jubilation at knowing that his son was not lost, that he had not gone to the grave but that he lived. Yet Jacob was kept in the dark. God did not reveal the one thing that would have taken Jacob’s pain away but comforted him, molded him, and grew him in his pain. This is a testament to the potential for growth in suffering, a beacon of hope in the darkest of times.

It was only after Jacob shook off the lie that Joseph was dead that God spoke to him that very night, telling him to go to Egypt and see his son. Oftentimes, the prejudices we hold and the lies we believe are so deeply rooted in our hearts that they block out the voice of God, and were He to speak clearly, we would brush it off because it would contradict what we believe to be established facts.

During a conversation with a former cessationist, he said something that stuck with me for the longest time. Because of his conviction that the gifts had ceased with the early church Apostles, when God began speaking to him, for the longest time, he thought he was either losing his mind or hearing the enemy's voice. The more he prayed, however, the more he heard the voice of God until the experience forced him to go back to the Word and discover for himself that things were not as he believed or as he had been taught.    

1 Corinthians 4:5, “Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord comes, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness and reveal the counsels of the heart. Then each one’s praise will come from God.”

Just because you think a situation is hopeless, it doesn’t mean God does. Just because you can’t see a way out of a predicament, it doesn’t mean God hasn’t already made a way. We must allow for the reality that God sees what we cannot and walk by faith rather than sight. Your sight will hinder you. It will disincline you to press onward, sap your energy and enthusiasm to continue on your journey, and bring to mind all the things that are wrong, that can go wrong, or that might go wrong, keeping you static and unmoving.

Faith sees beyond the present, beyond the now, beyond the current situation one might find themselves in, and propels us ever forward toward the prize, toward the goal, toward the reward He will bring upon His return to give to everyone according to his work. Eyes of faith allow you to see what will be based on the promises God has made in His word, giving us full assurance that our light affliction, our temporary suffering, our season of heartache or hurt is working for us a far more exceeding weight of glory.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.