Job CXXXIV

 Job 11:13-20, “If you would prepare your heart, and stretch out your hands toward Him; If iniquity were in your hand, and you put it far away, and would not let wickedness dwell in your tents; then surely you could lift up your face without spot; yes, you could be steadfast, and not fear; because you would forget your misery, and remember it as waters that have passed away, and your life would be brighter than noonday. Though you were dark, you would be like the morning. And you would be secure because there is hope; yes, you would dig around you, and take rest in your safety; You would also lie down, and no one would make you afraid; yes, many would court your favor. But the eyes of the wicked will fail, and they shall not escape, and their hope – loss of life!”

When someone insists on telling you what you should have done in a given situation without having full knowledge of what you already did, their counsel, even if well intentioned, will always fall short.

If your car won’t start, and someone insist you should press on the brake pedal to get your engine to turn, it’s sound advice for anyone who’s never started a car, but you’ve been doing just that for the past five years, did the same thing that morning, and not even a whimper from your powerful four cylinder Kia.

When you inform the person offering advice that you are not a dullard, and this isn’t your first time behind the wheel, those with a modicum of self-awareness will shrug their shoulders and give up, admitting they don’t have a clue, but others will insist that you’re not pressing the brake pedal hard enough, and that’s why your engine won’t turn. They don’t even bother to ask if any of the lights come on or if you hear the melodic ding when you put your key into the ignition because, to them, the reason is already a foregone conclusion.

It’s not that the battery is dead; it’s that you did it wrong, and if you did it the way they told you to, as if by some medieval alchemy, your car would start.

This was Zophar’s approach on the matter, layering assumption upon assumption regarding what Job had done and what he had failed to do, even though Job had repeatedly insisted that he had searched his heart and that he had cried out to God to show him if there was error in him. Whether Zophar didn’t believe Job outright or assumed that he hadn’t dug deep enough into his own past to see where he had erred remains unclear, but either way, his conclusion is still the same.

If you’d done it differently, perhaps you would have the wherewithal to lift up your face without spot and be steadfast and not fear. If you’d do as I instruct, you’d forget your misery, Zophar insisted, even though it’s nigh impossible to forget something as ever present as being caked with worms and open sores throughout your body.

I think it’s the lack of compassion and empathy from Job’s friends that rubs most people the wrong way. Even strangers would likely show more empathy toward someone lying in the dust of the earth, watching their strength wane and their condition worsen, but not so with his friends.

Their primary concern wasn’t for their friend or his welfare but trying to find an explanation for why he was suffering so, and the only thing that all three of them could agree on was that he had sinned. Some of their remarks were more forceful than others, with Zophar taking top prize for callousness, but all three had come to the same conclusion, likely feeding off each other’s assumptions and working themselves up into a lather.

One of the greatest dangers of having a friend, a spouse, a family member, or an acquaintance whispering doubt and discouragement in your ear while you're going through a trial is that your faith runs the risk of decreasing in strength just as your physical body is. Faith is both a shield and an impenetrable wall to the spiritual man, and if it becomes weakened or grows dull due to repeated attacks, it becomes easier for the enemy to sow doubt and bitterness in one’s heart.

It matters not what my outer man is experiencing, as long as my inner man is cocooned in faith, because while the outer man suffers for a season, it is during that season that the spiritual man grows and expands in his faith and trust in God.

The entire purpose of the enemy’s attacks isn’t to make you feel bloated, feel pain, or in extreme cases, such as Job’s, become a worm-covered human husk that knows only pain and torment in perpetuity. The purpose of physical attacks is to weaken the spiritual man, to chip away at one’s faith, and untether him from the source of life, which is God. That’s the end game. That’s the goal, and the prize isn’t your physical discomfort, as far as the enemy sees it, but the abdication of your once strong and immovable faith in God.

Satan understands the futility of the flesh. He knows that sooner or later, it will return to the dust from whence it came. His goal and purpose are to use the flesh in order to blindside the spiritual man, and if the spiritual man is not watchful or fully reliant upon God, cause him to rebel or sin against God somehow.

It may sound counterintuitive, but when you are going through physical suffering of any kind, your focus should be on keeping up the strength of your spiritual man. Rather than bemoan your frailty or hardship, it’s in the midst of physical suffering that you should endeavor to spend more time in God’s presence, in His word, and draw ever closer to Him.

Having the benefit of the aggregate experiences of those who came before us, we can more readily defend against the enemy’s devices, thereby keeping strong in the faith and enduring joyfully. It’s one thing to be able to look back on Job's life and understand the purpose of his suffering, and it’s another to be Job himself, wherein he was in complete darkness regarding the reason he was suffering the things he was. It’s one thing to cut your way through a forest; it’s another to walk a path others have tread before you. Out of sheer stubbornness, some refuse to walk the well-trodden path and set out to cut their own through the brush and the thistle, only to discover that it’s not as easy as they thought it would be, and at best, it’s wasted effort.

Be humble enough to acknowledge that simple as they may seem, the tried and true ways of remaining steadfast in God during trials work. Pray, fast, seek His face, and read His word, receiving His strength in your weakness and growing in the knowledge of Him. Simple, straightforward, and effective. Uncomplicated to the utmost, but for some, it’s deemed too easy to produce the same kinds of results it produced in others. 

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.