Job CLXXV

 By the seventh verse, Job was no longer addressing his friends. He’d said all he needed to say to them, calling them miserable comforters, but then there's a tonal shift as Job addresses God himself.

Sometimes, not knowing why we’re going through a season in the valley is as difficult as the journey itself. We oscillate between hope and despondency, whether the news is good or bad, whether the treatment worked or didn’t, and with each extreme, the wind is knocked out of us. Why is this happening to me? It is the cry of many a heart, a cry that becomes a chorus, and even though we may desperately want to know the answer to this all-encompassing question, sometimes we are kept in the dark and not given to understand it.

It is during such times that we must trust in the wisdom, love, faithfulness, and sovereignty of the God we serve and conclude that He knows best, even though we might not see the benefits of it in the moment. Your view will never be as broad or all-encompassing as God’s. That’s just the reality of it. He knows the end from the beginning; we see a few hand spans in front of our own noses. The two cannot compare.

When trust in God is well established, when we don’t simply acknowledge with our lips that He knows best, but believe it in our hearts, then whatever the trial, whatever the hardship, whatever the valley or the cross, we bear it knowing there is a purpose beyond what we can see or perceive.    

It would be nice to know the why of every event in our lives, but much of the time, we are not given that knowledge. Whether it’s because our faith must be tested, or because our trust in God must be matured, God has His reasons, and we must make our peace with it. We know that faith is the substance of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen. If we were given all knowledge of why we are going through a trial, then it would no longer require faith to cling to the promises of God and fully trust that He will make a way.

It’s easier for the flesh to have turn-by-turn instructions when going from one place to another, but sometimes God takes us by the hand and leads us on journeys where His singular purpose is to teach us to trust Him more. If He leads, we must follow, fully assured that He knows the destination and how to get there, fully aware of the hills, valleys, uneven roads, and wilderness we must traverse. He will not cause us to wander endlessly without knowing what we will become during the course of our journey, or without a destination in mind.

The reason some men never see the full measure of the good the trials in their lives produce is that they give up halfway, no longer willing to trust the sovereignty of God but taking it upon themselves to ease their burden or find an easier path. It’s not that He can’t make your journey less trying, it’s Him knowing that not doing so will make you stronger than having done it ever would. It’s about the finished product and becoming a vessel of honor in His hands, not about the refining process we had to go through to get there.

We can resort to the tried-and-true example of pressure turning coal into diamonds, but you already know it, and I don’t enjoy being repetitive. God knows what He is doing. He knows where you need to be in order for Him to use you as He desires to. If the cry of your heart is whatever it takes, then don’t flinch away when He proceeds to do just that.  

Lord, show me your glory! “Gladly,” He answers, “it’s just beyond the season of pruning, sifting, humbling, breaking, transforming, and sanctifying. It is the way, and there is no other.”

There are no fast passes, no way to jump the line or circumvent the purifying required for us as men and women to be able to behold His glory. Because some fail to count the cost as Jesus instructed multiple times, believing the voices that told them it would be easy and that no sacrifice was required, they wither in the furnace of affliction, trial, and tribulation, retreating from the prize they enthusiastically insisted they wanted. Others, understanding the true worth and value of the prize, endure, persevere, and come through stronger, seasoned, tested, and proven.

Purpose and attitude will determine the outcome. Is your purpose fame, riches, and the adulation of men? If so, when affliction comes, your attitude and inclination will be to shrink back, beg it off, and find something easier for the flesh. If, however, your purpose is the excellence of the knowledge of Christ, then whatever is required for you to reach your goal, whether it’s the loss of friends, family, status, or employment, you sacrifice them gladly.

Trials, testing, and affliction have a way of stripping us of the things God finds off-putting — such as performative spirituality, pretense, and pride — peeling the layers one at a time until what remains is something He can work with, mold, and refine. Anyone who thinks they start off as a clean vessel within and without, pristine in every way, and not needing refinement, sanctification, or the infilling of the Holy Spirit is fooling themselves into believing they are more than they know themselves to be. Perhaps it’s a byproduct of the participation trophy generation, or the entitlement mindset that seems to have wormed its way into the household of faith itself, but whatever the reason, the results are dismal, and evident enough for us to question the veracity of the claims some men make wherein they can live as they will, do as they will, walk as they will, and still be used of God.       

If we are given to understand why, then getting through it becomes easier in one respect. It eliminates the constant questions of whether we’ve done something we were unaware of to displease God, and, if so, wondering what it was so we may repent of it. When we are in the dark as to why we are going through a trial, it’s inevitable that at some point along the way, the enemy’s whispers will insist that we’ve been abandoned by the God in whom we put our trust.

Yes, Job was at a low point. Yes, his suffering was beyond what we can imagine, yes, all seemed lost, and even his friends had turned against him, but God had not abandoned Him, just as He will never abandon you or me. Cling to Him, knowing that He will make a way, and His way is perfect.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.