Job CLXXXII

 The devil can’t force you to give up. He can’t make you capitulate. His power is limited, and you have the choice to remain faithful and endure to the end, or be crushed under the weight of trials and tribulations. Our faith is tested not because God’s desire is for us to lose faith, but because His desire is for us to grow from faith to faith, ever more anchored in His promises, His word, and His sovereignty. If we are shattered, it’s only because He wants to rebuild us, stronger, bolder, and more resilient than we once were.

Just as it would be an odd thing to see an adult riding a bicycle with training wheels still attached, it ought to be an oddity to see someone who claims to have been in the faith for decades not having grown or matured. Faith is meant to grow. It is meant to stretch. It is intended to increase with each passing day rather than remain static. At some point, God takes off the training wheels, then he takes away the handlebars, and all we have to do is pedal. Just pedal. He knows the way, He’ll make a way, He will keep us upright and moving forward, as long as we keep pedaling. Our duty is to pick up our crosses and follow after Him, not be dragged behind Him against our will.  

But what if I want to take another route? What if I want to make a pit stop? What if I’d planned on going in another direction than the one God is taking me in? Those are the inflection points in one’s life that the enemy tries to exploit every time they arise. It is then that we, as individuals, must choose to go our way or His way. To blaze our own trail, or trust that God will lead us to our destination even though it may not be via the route we’d envisioned.

We can’t blame God for where we end up if we didn’t follow where He led. We can’t grow bitter in our hearts when everything unravels if, all the while, we were kicking against the goads and allowing our hearts and feelings to dictate our course rather than trusting God to guide us.

The sooner we come to terms with the reality that we control nothing, He controls everything, and our duty is to trust and have faith in Him, no matter what our senses may infer, the sooner we will know true joy and peace that surpasses understanding. When we resist the plan of God, believing we know of a better path, the way becomes cumbersome and difficult; a perpetual struggle to push a boulder up a hill only to have it roll back down again. When we submit to His will, however, even the grimmest of times and the darkest of days will be deemed a momentary, light affliction in hindsight.

Job 17:9, “Yet the righteous will hold to his way, and he who has clean hands will be stronger and stronger.”

Job’s conclusion wasn’t based on theory but on lived experience. He wasn’t guessing at what the righteous would do; he had been hammered, battered, bruised, deflated, his entire life upended, yet he held to his way.

There’s a saying that those who can’t do teach. There are, however, instances when those who have done feel obligated to teach so that when others encounter similar circumstances, they can learn from the experiences of others who traversed similar valleys.

Job knew that if God had seen him as his friends did, if he was the man his friends believed him to be, he would have given up long ago. If truly he had committed wickedness deserving of worse than he was enduring, then he would not have placed his trust in God to the point he had, nor would he have held to his integrity after his own wife not so subtly suggested that he should curse God and die.

Even when his name becomes a byword, when his eyes grow dim because of sorrow and all his members are like shadows, even when he finds no comfort in the words of those closest to him, the righteous will hold to his way. It’s not because he’s stubborn or unwilling to face reality, but because he knows the God he serves. Not tangentially or superficially, not via a surrogate or a third party, but personally, intimately, and deeply.

True knowledge of God and being in fellowship with Him chases away fear, doubt, and uncertainty about tomorrow, and gives us peace and assurance in the present. It’s when our focus is on things rather than on God that we get rattled by external pressure or unexpected situations.

The righteous holds to his way, not because the way is easy, not because it is absent hardships, trials, and tribulations, but because he knows that his strength does not come from himself but rather the God he serves. They understand the sovereignty of the God they serve, having full faith and assurance that He can do all things. There are no limitations or restrictions as to what God can do. He spoke the universe into being without breaking a sweat, yet we find ourselves contemplating whether He can remedy a situation we find ourselves in. He can. It is a certainty. The only question is, do we trust Him enough to submit to His will and concede that if He wills it, there is resolution in His time, in His way, for His purpose.

2 Corinthians 7:10, “For godly sorrow produces repentance, leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death.”

Even in his current state, Job understood the marked difference between godly sorrow and worldly sorrow. While one has the benefit of producing repentance leading to salvation, wherein even in the midst of trials, those with clean hands will grow from strength to strength, the other produces death.

Sorrow is not exclusive to the world. The righteous, however, having godly sorrow, produce fruit, grow stronger, learn trust, and increase their faith, drawing ever closer to God, clinging to Him, and becoming dependent upon Him all the more.       

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.