Job CLXXVI

 So you’re saying all I need to do is trust God in everything, all the time? Sounds a bit reductionist. Don’t you think? If I were trying to sell you a course, perhaps. I couldn’t justify charging fifty bucks for a sentence, could I? Thankfully, I’m not trying to sell you anything. I give what I have as a gift, so I don’t have to needlessly complicate a simple principle in order to make myself seem indispensable.

Even when the way is hard, trust God. Even when there is no obvious path forward, trust God. Even when those around you call you a fool, because they have no eyes of faith by which to see what God has shown you, trust God. Trust, like faith, grows, stretches, and expands with each new iteration of God’s faithfulness in your life. It grows and matures, as is the natural cycle of all living things, but unlike all living things, it need not wither, grow old, and die.

Every day, we trust God more. Every day, we build our faith a little more because there is no limit when it comes to these two virtues. Trust and faith do not plateau; they do not peak, and if you find yourself thinking you have less faith and trust in God today than you did yesterday, it is a symptom of a larger issue that must be identified and dealt with.

Men do not run out of faith and trust; they abandon them. Men do not lose faith and trust like a pair of keys or an old wallet; they forfeit these virtues in an attempt to do what only God can do on their own terms. That there were explicit terms and conditions when it came to following Jesus was general and accepted knowledge by the early church, because not only had the disciples heard it from the lips of Christ Himself, they followed through, and walked by faith, submitting to the process of sanctification, and clearly defining what it means to be saved and born again. They did not shrink back from preaching repentance, regeneration, sanctification, faith in Christ, and the picking up of one’s cross.

If the enemy can convince you to trust in the arm of the flesh, or that there can be a material solution for a spiritual problem, the battle is already leaning heavily in his favor. Satan knows that without the authority of God, without His protection, His presence, and His guidance, the best of us are easy pickings, prey huddling by a campfire waiting to be devoured.    

Job 16:10-14, “They gape at me with their mouth, they strike me reproachfully on the cheek, they gather together against me. God has delivered me to the ungodly, and turned me over to the hands of the wicked. I was at ease, but He has shattered me; He also has taken me by my neck, and shaken me to pieces; He has set me up for His target, His archers surround me. He pierces my heart and does not pity; He pours out my gall on the ground. He breaks me with wound upon wound; He runs at me like a warrior.”

Even if Job were to consider placing his hope in friends, family, horses, or chariots, none of these options were available to him. His fortune was gone, his flocks were scattered or stolen, his friends gaped at him with their mouths and verbally struck him reproachfully on his cheek, and to Job it seemed as though God had set Himself against him.

For a man of faith, Job’s biggest fear seemed to have been realized; he concluded that God had delivered him to the ungodly, and turned him over to the hand of the wicked. What hope does a man have when God sets Himself against him? There is nothing he can do, no plans he can hatch up, no paths he can pursue to right his ship because the one who controls the storms is set against him, and just when he gets his head above water, a fresh wave crushes him against the rocks anew.

If not for the grim subject matter, Job could handily have been considered a poet in our day and likely the greatest poet of his day. By his choice of wording, by the interplay between hope and despair, by some of the comparisons he draws in his descriptions, we come to understand that Job was an intelligent man.

Beyond the wisdom that he gained from God and the insights he could glean only from somewhere other than himself, Job was not a simpleton, he wasn’t slow, and he wasn’t dim-witted. By all the things we know of him thus far, and the words he used in response both to his wife, his friends, and in addressing God, we can conclude that he was of above-average intelligence as far as aptitude is concerned.

Why does this matter? It doesn’t, not really, not in the grand scheme of things, but it does take the air out of the blowhards who insist that only the ill-informed, unintelligent, and unmotivated resort to following God. Professing to be wise, they became fools, indeed.

Contrary to the smug, condescending, modern-day dumpster fires that endlessly drone on about how living a life of faithfulness, obedience, and submission is merely a coping mechanism for those who fail at life, knowing God, forming a relationship with Him, and desiring to know more of Him each day is the pinnacle of both intellect and human achievement. Although many a man has tried to leave an indelible mark, strived to be remembered after they were gone by those who forgot them as soon as they returned to the dust of the earth, the handful who walked with God, who lived in obedience to Him, are remembered throughout the generations, never to be forgotten, but more importantly remembered by God Himself.

Does God know you? Do you know Him? Are you His? When you cry out “Abba”, does He address you as son or daughter? These are the things that truly matter in life, no matter the circumstance or situation you may be facing. The world itself is passing away, but he who does the will of God abides forever. 

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.