Job CCI

 Genuine faith produces good fruit. Job’s life had been lived in service to God, and that reality had affected, permeated, and guided all of his actions, whether how he treated his wife, his children, or his servants. The genuineness of one’s devotion and relationship with God isn’t something they can turn on and off like a spigot. It’s not something that materializes and suddenly appears on weekends or when we’re in church. We are changed, transformed, and made new creations in Him; by definition, a new creation with the old attributes, inclinations, predilections, vices, desires, and emotional triggers is just the old man pretending to be new.

Therein lies the beauty of the testimonies of those who were once at enmity with God, living lives of hatred, bitterness, violence, and chaos, who, having been born again, renewed of mind and heart, became the polar opposites of who they once were. Rather than hate, they love; rather than bitterness, they exude joy; rather than visit violence upon others, they turn the other cheek.

When we are born again in Christ, we’re not trying to be better men and women; we become better men and women. No, it’s not a distinction without a difference, but one of the signs that we have been regenerated, sanctified, and transformed into His likeness.

The true heart of an individual is revealed in how they interact with you when they have nothing more to gain from you. The heart of Job’s servant was revealed to be less than noble as he’d already concluded that Job was a gasp away from dying, had come to the lowly place of sitting on an ash heap, scratching at his boils with a potsherd, and lost everything that the world, including himself, saw as valuable. His attitude toward Job had changed because Job’s position in society had changed. That is a sure sign that no genuine affection ever existed, but only a feigned subservience, dependent on whether Job could continue to keep him employed.

Some twenty-five years ago, the ministry went through a trial of unprecedented proportions. Individuals whom we’d trusted decided they could take the ministry to another level if they were in charge, and so did everything they could to take it and run with it. My grandfather had gone to his reward some years prior, the whole family had moved back to Romania, and at the time, we’d needed someone to focus on the work in the States. Little did we know of the aspirations these individuals had.

I get it. It’s always easier to attempt a hostile takeover of an established ministry than to put in the time and sweat equity to start your own. The problem is that it wasn’t my ministry, or my mother’s ministry, or my family’s ministry, but God’s ministry. This isn’t a business; it’s a calling.

The issue dragged on, and we found ourselves unable to make payroll for the orphanage staff, even after we’d sold the ministry vans and pretty much everything that wasn’t nailed down. We gathered the staff, who numbered well over forty, and had a heart-to-heart. We explained the situation and told them we would do our best to ensure they were paid, but there was no guarantee.

We understood they had families of their own to feed, so if they chose to find employment elsewhere, we wouldn’t hold it against them. Not one left! That was a defining moment for me because I understood that those we’d surrounded ourselves with weren’t doing what they did solely for the paycheck but because they, too, had been called to the work of watching over the children in our care.

God made a way, as He always does, and we were able to pay our employees on time, keep the lights on, and the children fed, but that moment when they had nothing to gain, could have walked away, but chose to continue serving is still something I remember fondly, even though it’s been nigh on twenty-five years.

Some of those individuals remain employed by the ministry in Romania to this day. They stuck it out when times were tough, when the situation seemed untenable, not because they knew it would work out in our favor or that the situation would be remedied, but because they understood it was the right thing to do. An individual's character is revealed in difficult times. Job’s servant failed the test.

Among the handful of people I consider my friends, a couple of them are relatively well off, so much so that in conversation with them, a nagging concern, something always in the back of their mind, is whether those in their orbit are there only because of what they can do for them, rather than a genuine desire to be in their presence.

My take was simple enough: pretend you lost it all, then see who sticks around. Those are your true friends. Neither of them took me up on my counsel because they confided a latent fear that more people than they believed would disavow them and have nothing to do with them. If that’s the case, then you’re enabling people who care nothing for you anyway.

I’d rather know and let the chips fall where they may. Pretend friends who are only present during the good seasons of life aren’t really friends; they’re opportunists who see a ticket to easy street and will do anything and say anything to stay in your good graces until such a time as you are no longer able to throw them a few bucks. They’ll never challenge or correct their benefactors even when they know correction is warranted because their goal isn’t your well-being, but theirs. Those are not the kinds of people you want to be around, and enough stories are floating about to confirm this truth.

You will never have to wonder about Jesus. He has no ulterior motive or vested interest. He’s not pretending to love you. He’s already proven His love by laying His life down for you. He loved you first. He proved His love to the point of death, and it is a love worthy of being reciprocated in kind.

1 John 4:19, “We love Him because He first loved us.” 

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job CC

 The message of the gospel and biblical salvation are simple enough concepts to understand as long as we’re not trying to cling to the old man with a Charlton Heston-like death grip. A life for a life. That’s the contract, that’s the offer, and it’s standard for each and every one of us. There are no addenda, no amendments, no carve-outs, or exemptions for either individuals, races of people, or specific nationalities.

Your life, your bleak, dull, uninspired, guilt-ridden, rudderless, and empty life, for His life. Your heart of stone for His heart of flesh. Your darkened, duplicitous, indecisive, self-doubting mind for a new mind, His mind, a mind of clarity and purpose. A mind that seeks to do the will of the Father in all things. Your will for His will. Your purpose for His purpose. You, dead in your sin, for a life in Christ, a life that promises eternity in His presence for the handful of years you journey on this earth. It’s an either-or proposition. Either you believe, have been set free, and regenerated, or you continue to remain in the mire of sin and despair.

If I desire for Christ to live in me, it’s a given that I must die to self. If nothing wicked or defiled will enter into His kingdom, then if we desire to enter in, we must ensure that we are washed and made clean in the blood of the Lamb, and that no spot or wrinkle is present upon our garments.

Why is it that we take some of God’s words at face value, believing them to the fullest, while others we downplay and try to discount? The same Scripture that says blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out, says that God abhors wickedness and the lukewarm will be spewed from His mouth. Why do we stand on the one, but not on the other? Why do we quote one over the other at a rate of 10:1 on a good day?  

It’s not complicated; we choose to complicate it. We complicate it because we think we can wriggle out of repentance, righteousness, and obedience, and that in itself is more telling than any Hillsong we may be lip-syncing on a given Sunday.

It’s when men want the impossible, to live as the world, yet retain the hope of salvation, that things get muddled, and they exist in what can best be described as the in between, where they’re neither fully committed to Christ, nor fully committed to the hedonism of this world. That in-between place is one of constant defeats, setbacks, disappointments, and disillusionment, because they’re trying to be ‘good people’ rather than saved people, and knowing that what they are pursuing is self-destructive, they pursue it nevertheless because they never surrendered their life to gain His life. They attempted to blend the two, something that is wholly impossible.    

Job 19:13-20, “He has removed my brothers far from me, and my acquaintances are completely estranged from me. My relatives have failed, and my close friends have forgotten me. Those who dwell in my house, and my maidservants, count me as a stranger; I am an alien in their sight. I call my servant, but he gives no answer; I beg him with my mouth. My breath is offensive to my wife, and I am repulsive to the children of my own body. Even young children despise me; I arise and they speak against me. All my close friends abhor me, and those whom I love have turned against me. My bone clings to my skin and to my flesh, and I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.”

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but it’s not hard to visualize what Job looked like at this stage. He paints a word picture like few others could, pouring his pain, frustration, and desperation into a handful of words that bring together a portrait of a once-influential, powerful man whose servants were at his beck and call, being ignored and altogether overlooked by them.

Out of sight, out of mind may be true in theory, but Job wasn’t out of sight. He was still there, calling to his servant, begging him, and yet receiving no answer. Job likely treated his servant well before his trial came upon him. The character of a man of God is clearly visible in all his actions, whether anyone is watching or not.

It’s those with duplicitous, divided hearts that act one way when the world is watching, and a completely different way when no one is. It’s one of the contributing factors why so many PK’s -and for those of you who don’t know what that stands for, it’s pastors’ kids - want nothing to do with God, church, or the Bible. They witnessed the hypocrisy firsthand. They witnessed the transformation from a smiling, jovial, handclapping, and glad-handing man to one with no fuse to speak of and a temper so short that he flew off the handle at the merest breeze.

I’ve been open enough over the years that everyone knows the impact my grandfather has had on my spiritual walk and maturation. I grew up in a neighborhood where everyone and their cousin had a side hustle of some kind, and most of it was of the illegal variety. I couldn’t help but interact with the neighborhood kids, and everyone would try to teach me their tried-and-true methods for making extra cash. Whether it was boosting airbags, yes, that was a thing back in the day, to car stereos, to hubcaps, to more complicated schemes that involved a partner and a bit of planning, everyone had an angle they were exploiting and were gracious enough to try and get me to participate.

I can’t say I was never tempted. I grew up poor. It was all my mom and dad could do with their two jobs to make rent every month, and my grandfather and I would go through the neighborhood dumpster-diving for aluminum cans. It crossed my mind more than once that I could make more in thirty minutes than what took us a month of recycling aluminum cans to make.

It wasn’t fear of getting caught that kept me from going down that particular path. The police were as intrepid back then about petty crime in California as they are today, and we weren’t close enough to the rich part of town for them to make an effort.

If anything, what kept me on the straight and narrow was seeing the faithfulness, commitment, and genuine love for Jesus, not only in my grandfather, but also in my mom, my dad, and my grandmother as well. I was surrounded by examples of honesty, conviction, and virtue. They genuinely loved Jesus, and it showed in the words they spoke, the people they helped, the meals they prepared, and the joy they possessed. Raising up a child in the way they should go, goes beyond words or good advice. It must extend to being an example, a role model, someone they can see as one who possesses the attributes of Christ in perpetuity.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job CXCIX

 Whether spoken in frustration, pain, or desperation, if Job truly believed the words he’d spoken regarding God having abandoned him, and what’s more, being actively against him, he would have called it quits right then and there. If you’ve got nothing left to cling to, what’s the point? If the faith you placed in God was shaken and shattered, the pieces scattered by the winds, and all that remained was despair, why go on?

Blameless and upright, he might have been by God’s assessment, but Job was still human. Things still got under his skin, he still reacted to his friend’s barbs, and he grew ever more uncomfortable to the point of despondency in the silence that followed his cries. This wasn’t about putting on a brave face or about projecting strength. Job was being honest, raw, open, and vulnerable. He expressed his inner turmoil, his frustration, and even his doubt that God was still in his corner.

We all like to see ourselves as the Stonewall Jackson of Christianity, unflinching and resolute, taking wound after wound but still remaining upright, often failing to see the forest for the trees, in that if we still stand, it’s not in our strength but His. Every man’s strength fails him; God’s strength never does.

It doesn’t matter who we point to as the pinnacle of spirituality; in the end, they were still men, they had insecurities and fears, they had moments of hardship and pain to the point of wishing they were no longer among the living, but what sets them apart is that they knew where their strength came from.

Yes, they were bold, heroic, resolute, having resolved to go to the death if need be for the cause of Christ, but in the darkest, most desperate of moments, it was still God who sustained them, it was God who breathed strength into their bones, and comforted them in their pain.

Everyone knew the instant they went beyond their own strength or ability. They understood it was not their words being spoken, but His words through them. It was not their strength being brought to bear, but God’s strength operating in them. That’s why you’ll never see a true man of God boast of his victories, because they weren’t his. They were humble enough to serve and committed enough to obey, no matter what was required of them.

A wise man is self-aware enough to know the limitations of his own abilities and give all glory to God when those abilities are exceeded through them, not of their own but via the Holy Spirit dwelling within. One of the most corrosive mindsets we can possess as servants of God is that it is we who are accomplishing the things only God could, taking credit for them, and assuming that we are irreplaceable.

Taking the glory rightly due God and appropriating it to oneself is akin to playing with fire while doused in gasoline. You may not go up in flames the first time your hand flutters across an open flame, perhaps not even the second or the third, but eventually it will catch, and the kingdom you’ve built for yourself will be reduced to ash and rubble.

We’ve seen it play out so often as to be undeniable, predictable, and expected. God builds a work, man takes credit for the work, he uses worldly means to build it beyond what God desired it to become, then suddenly, it all comes crashing down. Was God in it at the genesis of it? Likely, when the man was humble, and pointed to Jesus, and preached the gospel without equivocation, He was. But then something changes: the pride of man takes root, and you can see incremental shifts in their demeanor, delivery, and what they choose to speak about, as well as what they choose to omit. It becomes more about showmanship than rightly dividing the Word, more about the man than the God the man claims to serve.

It doesn’t matter how many followers you have, how many people think you’re the bee’s knees, how often you are lauded or praised, always keep the words of Jesus at the forefront of your mind: without Me, you can do nothing!

John 15:4-6, “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.”

There are many branches, but only one vine. Independent of the vine, the branches cannot bear fruit, no matter how much they might want to, or what lengths they might go to in order to manufacture them. Jesus is the only indispensable factor in this parable. Whether many or few, the branches are still branches, and they must remain in the vine in order to produce fruit.

Although I’m the first to admit I neither have a green thumb, no take much pleasure in the task of tree pruning, I’ve been around some individuals who are adept at both, and a few summers back, as I took the girls apple picking at a local orchard, I overheard a man explain to a mom and her two sons why some trees fail to produce apples while others were heavy laden with them.

Apparently, there’s a term for it, and it’s called improper tree vigor. When this occurs, the branches are so focused on growing their length and thickness, expending all their energy in this singular pursuit, that they fail to produce flower buds. Although I have no plans of becoming an orchardist, I found the conversation and subsequent explanation fascinating.

A branch can be so obsessed with building itself up that it fails to fulfill its primary purpose, which is to produce fruit. There’s a profound lesson in this, the depths of which are waiting to be plumbed, but the overall warning is clear and succinct: be more concerned about bearing fruit than how far your branch spans, or how thick it is. Be more concerned with being in the vine than outshining the vine. Never forget; it is the vine that gives life and allows for the production of fruit.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Job CXCVIII

 If you want a God who will fix your problems and leave the rest of you as you are, without transformation, rebirth, or the presence of Christ in your heart, what you’re seeking after isn’t salvation, or eternity in the presence of God, but a remedy to your earthly concerns.

God is not a therapist, a cheerleader, a life coach, or a magic genie. He is the sovereign creator of all that exists, the God who breathed life into dust and made man, the Alpha and Omega who knows the end from the beginning. When we approach Him with anything less than the reverence due Him as God, when we diminish who He is because it makes us feel as though we are on equal footing with Him, we will always find an excuse not to humble ourselves and obey Him.

We wrestle with God; we grapple with shadows; we exhaust ourselves chasing rumors, innuendo, fictitious assumptions, and rabbit trails, when by submitting ourselves to His guiding hand, we can enter into His rest and have peace that surpasses all understanding.

When we are in Christ, we have peace about today and about tomorrow. Our focus isn’t on unraveling the Gordian knot of geopolitical affairs, or being beside ourselves as to when the other shoe will drop, and some new crisis will eclipse the old crisis, but on worshipping, serving, praising, and fellowshipping with He who has us sheltered under the shadow of His wing.

Foreknowledge, or prophecy for that matter were not intended as a source of fear for the children of God, but rather a reassurance that He knows the end from the beginning, and in that assurance, we can be at rest. When what God foretells comes to pass, it serves as a further cementing of our trust in Him. It allows us to realize that if He was right about one thing that, to the human intellect, seemed improbable or even impossible, then He was right about everything, including the return of Christ and the reward of the righteous.

God isn’t guessing about what tomorrow might bring. He is certain, without a shadow of doubt or turning, because He is not constrained by time as we know it.

Job 19:7-12, “If I cry out concerning wrong, I am not heard. If I cry aloud, there is no justice. He has fenced up my way, so that I cannot pass; And He has set darkness in my paths. He has stripped me of my glory, and taken the crown from my head. He breaks me down on every side, and I am gone; My hope He has uprooted like a tree. He has also kindled His wrath against me, and He counts me as one of His enemies. His troops come together and build up their road against me; they encamp all around my tent.”

Even when the night is dark and overcast, it doesn’t mean the stars beyond no longer exist. It just means we can’t see them in the moment. They remain, ever present, and though our mind might tell us the stars are no more, because our eyes cannot see them, we know that they’re still there, and we will see them anew once the clouds pass by and the skies clear.

The same can be said of God sometimes. In the midst of our trial, in the midst of our suffering, in the midst of our pain, it becomes difficult to see the plan of God, or see His hand upon us, but they are real and present nevertheless. Job had come to believe that God was against him. He’d cried out, and there had been no response; therefore, he’d concluded that God had not heard. Just because God does not answer within the time we think He should, it doesn’t mean He hasn’t heard us. It’s one of those truths we do not want to dwell upon, especially in the midst of a trial, but it is, nevertheless, true.

God is not blind to our struggles, He is not deaf to our cries, He is not indifferent to our situation, and whenever such thoughts begin to assail us, we know where they originate from. It’s the enemy attempting to stifle our hope, to choke our faith, to convince us to give up, pack it in, and surrender to despondency. Only in knowing the nature of the God we serve can we retain faith in the midst of trial, and hope in the midst of hardship.

I know the God I serve! I know He sees, I know He hears, I know He is neither indifferent nor unconcerned, and this awareness of His character gives us the strength to endure, to press on, and to acknowledge that whatever hardship we may be enduring presently is only temporary. Yes, faith is tested. It must be tested so it might be proven.

Our focus as children of God must be on what the testing will produce in us rather than the hardship of the test itself. Everyone wants to see the view from the mountaintop, but not everyone is willing to make the climb. Given that this is common knowledge, there are those who prey upon the household of faith by promising them the view in all its glory without having to exert themselves with the climb, insisting there is a way of bypassing it, avoiding it, and not having to endure it. What those who fall into this snare end up getting is a poor imitation. A picture of a picture, another who took the time to grow, took once they ascended to the peak, not understanding that the reward is in the journey. It’s not enough to nurture ourselves with the testimonies of others. We must be willing to endure and obey so that our lives might also be a testimony of God’s goodness, protection, provision, and deliverance.

We grow with every step we take toward sanctification. We grow with every step we take toward complete obedience and trust in God. Without the journey, there is no maturing. Without the climb, there is no added strength and endurance. We may save ourselves a bit of struggle by attempting to find alternatives to the pruning, the forming, and the forging, but what we lose out on is the fellowship and intimacy that can only come about by consistently following after Him.   

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job CXCVII

 Pain, whether physical or the pain that comes with the loss of a loved one, is hard enough to process and deal with without a chorus of voices insisting that you deserve it, you had it coming, and that it’s no less than God’s justice manifesting itself in your life. It compresses your universe to a pinprick, and all you know in the moment is that. If mourning, all you know is that hollow feeling that comes with the reality of separation. If bedridden due to some ailment, the bed soon feels like a prison, and the fresh air one took for granted, the sunsets and sunrises they rarely acknowledged, become untenable dreams and yearnings to be experienced again.

There is a difference between having to endure the consequences of the choices one makes in their life and what Job was going through. If you spent the last forty years on a steady diet of booze and not much else, when the doctor tells you that your liver’s shot, it’s not God punishing you, it’s the consequence of the choices you made time and again.

I am fully aware that accountability is as popular as foot fungus with a side of hives nowadays, but seeing what lack of personal accountability has wrought upon this present generation, perhaps we would do well to reacquaint ourselves with it while there is still time.

What’s worse is that many within the household of faith would rather deflect and pass the buck, blaming everyone from God to the devil to their next-door neighbor for the choices they knowingly and willingly made, growing bitter when walking the aisle and raising a hand doesn’t turn out to be the cure-all they were promised it would be.

God’s job isn’t to fix your life, it’s to save your soul. If He chooses to intervene and clear up some of the mess you’ve made, that’s His decision, His prerogative, and He does so not because we are deserving of such grace, but because He wills it so.

Have you come to the foot of the cross and humbled yourself because the love of Christ was made real to you, or because you wanted an easy fix for the problems that were piling up? Have you repented, picked up your cross, and followed after Him in the hope of being served, or out of sincere desire to be His servant?

There are those who inquire about Jesus because they’re curious, others who are desperate, and others still who are looking for an escape from their current circumstances, but the only ones that stick, the only ones that remain, the only ones that go the distance and live out their days in obedience to Christ are those who acknowledge that they are lost, broken, bruised, beaten, shattered, hopeless, and need a savior. They’re not looking for a temporary reprieve or an escape from the consequences of their choices, but true transformation, rebirth, and sanctification.

It is those who acknowledge that they cannot save themselves, and who are willing to surrender their pride, their ego, and their flesh, abandon aspirations and esteem for their positions and possessions, and submit wholly to His will, pruning, molding, and chiseling that go beyond the superficial, and come to experience the glory of having Christ dwell in their hearts.

There is nothing casual about authentic faith. There is nothing casual about true intimacy with God. The term casual Christianity is a misnomer of the highest order, one that readily passes the lips of a slew of people who use it as an identifier. There is no such thing as casual Christianity! True commitment isn’t situational. It’s not something that only applies when you’re in the majority, or when there are no headwinds of persecution in sight.

Eternity beckons and calls to us with each breath we take. With every sunrise and sunset, we are one day closer to shuffling off this mortal coil, and the last breath we take will be the last time we will be able to choose whether we will be welcomed into His kingdom or sent away. Eternity is what it’s about. It’s what it’s always been about, and the constant calls to embrace prosperity, which is nothing more than cloaked hedonism by those who ought to know better, aren’t doing the sheep of God’s pasture any favors.

Philippians 3:7-11, “But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection of the dead.”

These words were not penned by a nobody. They were penned by a man who showed such promise and brilliance in his youth that at the age of thirteen, he was sent from Tarsus to Jerusalem to study under the preeminent theologian of the time, a man named Gamaliel. His career path was set, and his entire life was before him. He would be a Pharisee, a high office to aspire to, but one encounter with Jesus made him count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus. 

Paul understood what so few truly grasp, that this journey called life is about the eternity that follows. This is the goal. This is the prize. Not earthly treasures, or temporary comfort. Job understood that life was finite. It has a beginning, and it has an end, and what we do in the short time we are here has eternal consequences, whether for good or ill. As far as Job was concerned, his life was already forfeit. He could not see a way out of his current predicament, yet his hope in the God he served remained intact, understanding that the day would come when there would be no pain, no sorrow, and no tears but for tears of joy.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job CXCVI

 Job 19:1-6, “Then Job answered and said: ‘How long will you torment my soul, and break me in pieces with words? These ten times you have reproached me; you are not ashamed that you have wronged me. And if indeed I have erred, my error remains with me. If indeed you exalt yourselves against me, and plead my disgrace against me, know then that God has wronged me, and has surrounded me with His net.”

Sticks and stones may break your bones, but sometimes, given the gravity of the situation, words can break your spirit just as readily. You don’t need to beat someone to a bloody pulp in order to hurt them; a careless, well-placed, intentionally hurtful retort will cause nearly as much pain without the relief of a salve, a balm, or a poultice a wound would enjoy. Job found himself in just such a situation, where the relief he hoped he would receive from his friends turned to torment, and the comfort he assumed would come from their lips turned into a torrent of accusation.

For Job, they weren’t just harmless words that rolled off his back like water off a duck, but a torment for his soul, and something that, by his own words, broke him to pieces.

Although there are many deep and profound spiritual lessons to be found in the book of Job, there are also many practical lessons we would do well in heeding one of which is to think before we speak, especially in volatile or pain-riddled situations, because our intentions might not match our words, and we will end up doing more harm than good.

Job’s three friends had gone beyond not bridling their tongues or letting something hurtful slip out in the heat of the moment. Their effort was concerted and well defined, and though Job’s strength was all but exhausted, he still had the presence of mind to understand what they were trying to do and what their aim was.

Even in his condition, Job kept track of how many times his friends had addressed him reproachfully. It’s an odd thing what the human mind chooses to remember, and what it forgets. You can go on an impromptu treasure hunt fifteen minutes after you lay your keys down, scouring the house, growing ever more frustrated until you realize they’re in your pocket, but remember with stark clarity what someone said fifteen years ago because what they said and the way they said it caused a wound.

Job had been aware that his friends had reproached him ten times, not nine, not eleven, but ten, remembering each of their words in turn and being aware of their ever-increasing tenor and vitriol.

Although this chapter begins in a similar fashion to the previous ones in which Job answered his friends, toward the middle and latter parts, it becomes, what is objectively, one of the great chapters of the Bible for its depth and insight.

What Job details in this nineteenth chapter goes beyond human reason or understanding and transcends into pure revelation. In the midst of his suffering, reproach, loneliness, trial, and pain, he utters some of the most beautiful words ever recorded regarding hope, assurance, and the future glory he will receive at the hand of a just and loving God.

One cannot read this chapter in its entirety and not conclude that Job’s words were divinely inspired. Especially given his condition and the state he was in, the beauty, poetry, truth, and divine insight are both humbling and encouraging for anyone experiencing a season of trial, sorrow, or hardship.

The shift from Job’s machinations to divinely inspired oratory is so evident as to be jarring. What begins as a rebuke of his friends turns into a crash course on the sovereignty, goodness, mercy, grace, justice, and faithfulness of God.

It’s easy to forget that Job was human, with human feelings, emotions, and pain. Given what his three friends had already said, it’s understandable that he would feel the way he felt about them, and since it was his turn to address them, he began by attempting to get them to see what had transpired through his eyes, rather than their own.

Nothing humbles you faster than walking a mile in another’s shoes. It’s an uncomfortable spot to be in, especially if we’ve already made up our minds about the situation, but sometimes just taking a breath and honestly ascertaining how we would react in a similar situation is enough to stir both empathy and compassion in our hearts.

We may think we know, and some of us do, but most of us don’t. Not really. Unless we’ve been in the same situation, there is no way to articulate the hollowness, emptiness, desperation, and the desire for nothing more than an end to the pain, however that end might present itself.

One of the most haunting images I’ve ever witnessed, and one that will stick with me for the rest of my life, took place this summer while we were visiting Romania. I had taken my daughters to see where their grandmother was buried, the cemetery being adjacent to the Hand of Help orphanage, and as we were walking back to the car, I saw a woman, dressed in black, sitting next to a fresh grave, the look on her face so wrought with pain that I couldn’t help but flinch. The headstone told the rest of the story: it was a young child who had recently been interred, and, given her countenance, it was hers.

My wife and I looked at each other, having the sort of silent conversation only a couple who have been together for many years can have, and we both knew there were no words we could say to this woman that would lessen her pain in the moment. There was nothing we could have done or said to comfort her, so we took our daughters by the hand and respectfully passed by, allowing the silence and the chirping of the birds in a nearby tree to continue uninterrupted.  

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job CXCV

 If we possess the heart of Christ, if we have been born and made a new creation in Him, then our response and reaction to the suffering of others must be rooted in compassion. Whether it was for a multitude or an individual, whenever Jesus acted, the Word always prefaces it by saying He was moved with compassion for them.

Cruelty is not a virtue. Dismissing someone’s pain or insisting that they deserve to drink the bitter cup down to the dregs because you’ve deemed it so is neither noble nor charitable. What’s worse, by far, is that it’s not Christlike. We say we want to be more like Jesus, but the way we react to another’s need, the way we interact with our fellow man, the compassion and empathy we fail to exemplify say otherwise. Or is it that we just want to open the eyes of the blind or walk on water? The secret is that you can’t have the authority of Christ without possessing the heart of Christ. You cannot journey through life absent love for the lost, affection for the downtrodden, and compassion for those in need, yet wield His power at will. Stunted spirituality is just that: stunted.

We are witnessing a generation become ever more callous, cruel, unfeeling, and retaliatory, and it’s happening with such speed and ferocity as to make one wonder what the end result of it all will be.

It’s understandable that the world rewards and gravitates toward the edgy, the controversial, and those who heap scorn upon anyone within earshot with all the glee of a toddler knocking down a wall of blocks because they are unregenerate, and in watching others wound their contemporaries they get to vicariously experience what it’s like to wield the power of the tongue in the most destructive manner possible.

Whether true or not, whether deserved or not, it seems that once one wound is inflicted, the mob can’t resist picking up stones and joining in. If there’s blood in the water, there will be a feeding frenzy. It’s nature taking its course. It’s both predictable and inevitable.

They convince themselves that whatever horrors the individual set upon will suffer are well deserved, and that they’re doing God’s work by kicking a man while he is down without ever taking the time to figure out whether he should be in the dust, gasping for breath to begin with.

What isn’t as understandable is when those who ought to have new minds and new hearts, those who ought to operate from a position of compassion and see those within the household of faith as members of the same body, take to imitating the world with the same glee and enthusiasm as the world.

When someone in a church body is hurting, grieving, or growing weary, to heap more pain upon their sagging shoulders is akin to taking a hammer to your own thumb, not accidentally, but on purpose. Again, we’re not talking about unrepentant sin or open rebellion, but the trials of life that buffet each of us sooner or later.

Neither Bildad nor Job’s two other friends could identify a sin or any wickedness in his life that warranted the level of hurt, pain, and loss he was enduring, but that didn’t stop them from concluding that he was deserving of worse still. Though they claimed to be his friends, they displayed no compassion when it came to Job’s suffering, and that is very telling as far as the condition of their hearts is concerned.

They wanted Job to be guilty of something because it would tie everything up in a nice little bow while simultaneously confirming their conclusions. There would be no need to ponder the notion of heretofore unseen mystery, nor acknowledge that they may have been wrong in their assertions that Job had done wickedness. There would be no need to humble themselves and admit that perhaps they didn’t know everything, after all.

Humble pie never goes down easy. For some, it’s downright unpalatable, and so they do everything they can to avoid it. They would rather falsely judge a situation or an individual than admit they were wrong and need to repent.

When compassion or love for the brethren is the driving force behind our actions, the hope is for comfort, encouragement, and restoration rather than insisting that it is within our right to be both judge, jury, and executioner. It strokes the ego to no end to pretend we were a version of Ceaser in Rome, where a man's life hung in the balance, determined by the flick of a wrist and the positioning of a thumb. An upward-pointed thumb and you are judged innocent. A downward-pointed thumb, and you are judged guilty, no matter what defense you mount or the insistence with which you decry the lack of evidence.

High horses and soap boxes are all well and good as long as you’re the individual astride them, passing judgment, but the day will come when another will sit astride the horse, or stand resolute upon the soapbox, and it should come as no surprise when you are judged with the judgment with which you judged.

Matthew 7:2-6, For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye’; and look, a plank is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”

One cannot be merciless and demand mercy. One cannot be callous and expect comfort. Jesus Himself said that with what judgment you judge, you will be judged, but few nowadays take that into account when their blood gets hot, and the need to be right overshadows everything else.

God was not deaf to what Bildad and his friends were saying to Job. He hadn’t tuned out, waiting on the sidelines to see how this would play out, and as we progress further into the book of Job, we see that God has much to say to both Bildad, Eliphaz, and Zophar.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job CXCIV

The only one within His right to absolutism in any given situation is God. When Bildad declares that surely such are the dwellings of the wicked, and that this is the place of him who does not know God, he is appropriating the omnipotence of God and supplanting His authority by declaring that his wisdom and God’s wisdom are on equal footing, and he has as much right to pass judgment on Job as God would.

We have different versions of the selfsame mindset within the household of faith nowadays, and it’s as dangerous now as it was when Bildad uttered the words assuming the authority reserved for God alone. The ‘I declare’ movement has been picking up steam recently, a retread of the word of faith debacle, also known as the name it and claim it shtick that attracted millions of followers and made some shady, unscrupulous men who would otherwise have had careers as used car salesmen richer than they could ever have envisioned.

While it is given to us, as children of God, to walk in His authority, it is also incumbent upon us to submit to His sovereignty. The two are not mutually exclusive, but they work in tandem because, oftentimes, our ways are not His ways; what we envision for ourselves is not the path He would have us journey upon. When such situations arise, His will must supersede our own, and we must submit to Him.

If the Son of God, who declared that He could call on His Father and He would provide Him with more than twelve legions of angels prayed that the Father’s will be done even though He would have preferred that the cup pass from Him, when we do not submit to His will for our lives what we are doing, in essence, is insinuation that we are superior to Christ Himself.

Christ’s declaration regarding the legions of angels was no empty boast. He was not trying to impress His disciples, or insist upon something that was untrue. Contrary to popular opinion, a legion during that time was not one hundred soldiers, but rather fifty-two hundred at a minimum, with the potential of rising to six thousand in some instances. Even though Jesus had full assurance that if He asked the Father to do so, He would send somewhere in the neighborhood of sixty-two thousand angels to His defense, His submission to the will of the Father was so complete as to declare His own will irrelevant in the matter, and that the Father’s will was of absolute import.

Humility and submission are two of the greatest lessons Jesus teaches those who would pick up their crosses and follow after Him, and tragically, they are the two lessons most often dismissed, ignored, and minimized. Why would you choose to feed the hungry when you can dine with royalty? Why would you choose to wash men’s feet when you can wear royal robes? Why would you choose to submit and obey when you can rule with a rod of iron?

It’s just common sense, after all. You have to look successful to reach successful people, don’t you? Tell that to John the Baptizer, who was clothed in camel hair with a leather belt around his waist, ate locusts and wild honey, and preached in the wilderness of Judea. If only he’d had the playbook of the modern-day soothsayers, he would have known that the wilderness is no place for ministry. You have to go where the action is, where you can reach the influential, and preach to those who can help you grow your brand.

We can’t just pray and fast and rely on God. We have to make it happen; otherwise, it never will. Yes, I know, the little ladies with the summer hats used to sing in His time, in His time, He makes all things beautiful in His time, but we’re not getting any younger, and His timing seems to be stuck in first gear when we should be in fifth by now.

Even though it’s purely ego-driven, such individuals are quick to insist that it’s all about the Kingdom. If it were, then you would be operating within the rules and parameters that the King of the Kingdom you claim fealty to set forth.

Then, when ultimately doing it on our own sets us back further than when we started, we shake our fists at the he heavens and grow resentful toward God because here we were burning the candle at both ends, spending time away from our families, walking around in a haze, bleary eyed, and exhausted because we’re putting in eighteen hour days, with less than nothing to show for it. We stepped up, and for what?

For those who are self-aware, there is an inevitable moment of epiphany where they realize all the things they were doing weren’t what God had asked them to do. It was them taking the initiative and racing ahead of God, rather than patiently waiting upon the Lord. It was them making assumptions, appropriating authority, and insisting that their vision was in line with God’s vision, for surely the Lord would want them to succeed.

The Lord wants what He’s always wanted: faithful, obedient servants who set aside their self-importance, who crucify their flesh, who mortify their ego, and do what they were called to do, go where they were called to go, and speak what they were told to speak.

If your actions are not rooted in obedience, you may think you’re helping, but you’re not. Wanting to win the world for Jesus may be a noble endeavor on its face, but God told you to win your neighbor first. If you are faithful in the little things, you will be faithful in the large ones. This is a principle Jesus laid out that holds to this day, for no one who is faithless in the small things will be faithful in the greater ones. God tests the hearts of men. They are either found faithful and obedient, or they aren’t; there is no middle ground.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Job CXCIII

 Job 18:17-21, “The memory of him perishes from the earth, and he has no name among the renowned. He is driven from light into darkness, and chased out of the world. He has neither son nor posterity among his people nor any remaining in his dwellings. Those in the west are astonished at his day, and those in the east are frightened. Surely such are the dwellings of the wicked, and this is the place of him who does not know God.”

Save for the affront at concluding that Job perceived him and his other two friends as stupid, Bildad spent the rest of his monologue describing what the ultimate fate of the wicked is. There are a few things he said that stand out because they parallel our modern-day culture to the point that one must acknowledge that while he was wrong about Job being wicked, the general demise of a wicked man, or a wicked nation, for that matter, was on point.

What resonated more than anything is that what this present society sees as progress, liberation, freedom, progress, and choice is no less than the punishment of the wicked, as detailed by Bildad. Whether it's being uprooted from the shelter of his tent, having those who are not of his dwelling therein, or having neither son nor posterity among his people, all these things are God’s punishment on the wicked. You may have come a long way, baby, but it’s the wrong way, and it’s a way that leads to desolation, destruction, and death.

When a nation is overtaken, and those who are not of that place dwell in the tents of those they once belonged to, it’s not an accident or a fluke, but God’s punishment upon the wicked. When the citizenry of an entire nation seems to be under such grand delusion as to choose not to have sons or daughters, ensuring that there is no future generation, no continuity of their bloodline or heritage, having to bring in strangers from other places with differing cultures, oftentimes hostile to them just to keep the numbers stable, it’s a sure sign that God’s punishment is being manifest against the wickedness they embraced. Couple that with the needless, senseless, soulless, inhuman murder of innocents in the womb, and what you have is a recipe for a judgment that not only can’t be averted, but the magnitude of which will stun the world into silence.

We can call it shifting demographics or natural migratory flows, but that’s because we refuse to acknowledge what it really is due to the underlying implications. What is happening in many first-world Western cultures is nothing less than God’s punishment upon the wicked. If we were to acknowledge this reality, we would have to conclude that we are not the righteous nation we thought ourselves to be, nor a shining light upon a hill, but the embodiment of the Laodicean church Jesus spoke of through John the Revelator.

It’s a hard pill to swallow for many who’ve been fed a steady diet of being told how special, unique, blessed, and highly favored they are for the past few decades. We continue to see ourselves as rich, wealthy, and in need of nothing when in reality we are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked.

We continue to beat our chests, insisting we are the pinnacle of human achievement, all the while spiraling further into darkness and hedonism, abandoning the things that lift up and elevate a people and embracing those that lead to their destruction. This is not accidental. It is a byproduct of rebellion. It is the ripple effect of a nation not heeding the warning to be zealous and repent, choosing instead to point at its wealth as a sure sign of God’s favor.

Hubris is a powerful drug. It causes men to ignore the obvious signs of decline, whether in their families, churches, or societies, clinging to a handful of things that serve as confirmation bias for what they see themselves as, rather than what God sees them as. I’m rich, therefore I am favored. I’m successful, therefore God’s hand is upon me. My church is growing, so I must be doing something right. I have a blue passport, so I won’t have to wait in line with all the peasants once I make it to the pearly gates. Red carpets and preferential treatment are in my future; God knows better than to spurn me. I’m a wizard at leaving Yelp reviews!

There is a standard. There is a plumb line, and it is not man who determines whether he is walking uprightly and in the will of God, but God. If God calls us to repentance and we reject the call because we insist that not being behind on bills is proof positive of our righteousness, all we’re doing is rationalizing disobedience and rebellion to ourselves. It will not convince God to see it our way, it will not trick Him into seeing us as obedient servants, and it will not hold back His judgment when it commences.

Bildad wasn’t wrong about the lot of the wicked; he was just wrong about Job. His misstep was insisting that the wicked and Job were interchangeable, one and the same, for surely no righteous man would suffer in the manner Job did.

If God gives grace to the humble, which the Word says He does, then whenever we are faced with situations that aren’t clear, cut and dry, and demonstrably verifiable, our best course of action is to possess enough humility to acknowledge that we haven’t arrived, we don’t know it all, and any judgment we pass may just be a faulty assumption on our part.

God knows all things fully, completely, with no missing pieces and no hidden secrets. Nothing is hid from His eyes, though much is hidden from ours, and as humble servants who understand He will judge all of creation with righteous judgment, may we have the wisdom to defer to Him whenever something is unclear.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.            

Job CXCII

 Even after all three of Job’s friends had each had their turn, and Bildad takes up the charge anew, I still can’t wrap my mind around the heel turn they made in their collective purpose. While they set out to comfort him, each coming from afar and traveling to meet him where he was, they ended up putting salt on his wounds, and being miserable comforters if that was still their goal.

It’s like setting out for Florida and ending up in Wyoming. Instead of beach and palm trees, all you see is white capped mountains and rocky terrain. Yet, none of them had the wherewithal to take a pause and see how far they’d strayed from their intended purpose. If you show up with the intent to help and end up making the situation worse than how you found it, you’re not really helping.

You can insist that it’s still what you’re trying to do, you can excuse and justify the behavior and words that heaped pain, discomfort, and scorn upon the individual you set out to comfort and encourage, but as always, the proof is in the pudding. You can tell me you’re trying to help me see better until you grow hoarse, and I still won’t believe you if all you’re doing is poking me in the eye repeatedly and with ever-increasing pressure and precision.

If the individual you’re trying to help insists that you’re not helping but rather making the situation worse, then stop helping. But you don’t understand. It’s my duty to help them, and I am helping them; they just don’t see it. That’s not the way it works.

For the past forty years, we’ve been conducting outreach to the poor and destitute in Romania and neighboring countries. We’ve learned a lot over these four decades of ministry, but perhaps the most important lesson of all is that every individual and family has a different need, and we must be sensitive to the specifics of that need in order to be a blessing.

If a family needs a new roof, it’s pointless to offer to build them a well because they already have one. The immediate need is the roof, and that is where the help is most appreciated. If someone’s hungry and you offer them a box full of board games, unless they can boil the cardboard and plastic pieces and make a meal out of it, perhaps save the games for when they have a bit of flour and rice in their cupboard.

Giving someone an espresso machine when they don’t have electricity isn’t as nice or thoughtful a gift as one might have assumed. What’s the point? Meet people where they are, not where you want them to be. If someone is hurting, be a comfort. If someone is hungry, buy them a meal. If someone is cold, give them a coat. Be aware. Be practical. Be the kind of friend you would like the person in question to be if you were going through what they were going through.

In Job’s case, he was desperate for some relief and a bit of comfort, but it was nowhere to be found. All that he was faced with was a concerted effort to make him admit to something he hadn’t done, not because it would make him feel better or bring him peace, but because it would validate his friends’ conclusions.

Beware of the man who thinks he knows it all. Eventually, what they claim to know as absolute truth will be proven less so, and when challenged, being incapable of admitting that even the most learned of us know in part, and that includes themselves, they will lash out in anger and vehemence because their fragile egos can’t accept that they’re nowhere near the godlike understanding they claim to possess.

Correction is not exclusive to the young. While the wise man seeks understanding in the things he acknowledges are beyond him, the fool insists that there is nothing new they can learn, they have all wisdom safely tucked away in their fanny pack, and if what they’ve a concluded is challenged, they’re suddenly on the defensive trying to undermine the individual who corrected them rather than challenge the veracity of the claim that they were wrong.

There was nothing special about Bildad. He was a common man, though likely more learned than most of his contemporaries, but his reaction to having his conclusions challenged by Job proves that the vanity of his ego was still well intact and held sway over his empathy, or desire to comfort Job.

We don’t outgrow correction. It’s not as though we reach a certain age, and from that point onward, we never make mistakes, come to the wrong conclusion, or misread a situation. Although correction is still forthcoming, sometimes from the most unexpected of places, when we are wise in our own eyes, we simply reject it wholesale. It’s that men reject God’s correction as their hearts grow cold, it’s not that they’ve outgrown it, or have surpassed a level of maturity wherein correction is no longer warranted.

Fatherhood has taught me more about the heart of God than reading a library’s worth of books ever could. As my girls get older, every time I try to show them the proper way of doing something, whether it’s slicing an apple, peeling a banana, or folding a shirt, more often than not, I get the patented, “I know how to do it already” with a side of “it’s not that complicated.” If you know how to do it, then do it right. Currently, you’re not doing it right, and that’s why I had to step in, point it out, and show you the right way to do it.

Especially when it comes to using sharp knives, I’m not correcting them just to see an eye roll or hear the “I got this, I know what I’m doing” refrain, but because I don’t want them to cut off a finger while slicing an apple. When God corrects us, it’s not because He is nitpicking or trying to prove He’s smarter than we are, but because what we are doing will lead us to a place we never intended to go, and He loves us enough to say stop.   

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job CXCI

 Job 18:10-16, “A noose is hidden from him on the ground, and the trap for him in the road. Terrors frighten him on every side and drive him to his feet. His strength is starved, and destruction is ready at his side. It devours patches of his skin; the firstborn of death devours his limbs. He is uprooted from the shelter of his tent, and they parade him before the king of terrors. They dwell in his tent who are none of his; brimstone is scattered on his dwelling. His roots are dried out below, and his branch withers above.”

A caustic ‘tell me how you really feel’ jape would be appropriate right about now, but Bildad wasn’t done, not by a long shot, and whatever self-control he’d had over his tongue up to this point is nowhere to be found. He needed Job to understand and acknowledge that he was a wicked man, and the need became near to overwhelming.

I can’t say I’ve insisted on another’s guilt with such determination even when I knew them to be guilty. Not assumed, or guessed at, but in possession of literal evidence of their guilt. When they didn't acknowledge it the first or second time and insisted on trying to justify their actions rather than fess up and admit guilt, the only option left to me was to terminate their employment and inform them they’d been fired.

What if the photos of them taking money out of the drawer were doctored, and someone was trying to frame them? This was the early nineties. Sci-fi was still reserved for Star Trek and their flip phones getting beamed up by Scotty. The photograph in question was taken accidentally by the photographer of a wedding party who happened to be my friend, and thought it was suspicious that the person taking orders at my mom’s bakery was putting the money they got from customers in their pocket, going into the register to make change, then putting the extra they’d extracted from the register into their pocket as well.

The it wasn’t me line wasn’t working. The face was clear, as was the fistful of cash they were stuffing in their shirt pocket. Had they owned up to what they’d done, made full restitution, and promised not to do it again, a second chance wasn’t just on the table, but likely. Why? Because all of us have been given second chances at one point or another in life. Perhaps not for taking something that wasn’t ours, or committing petty larceny, but if we think back, it’s likely we’ll remember something.

Perhaps it was the first impression we made on our potential future in-laws, or someone accepting an apology when we jumped to conclusions that turned out to be fallacious, we’ve all been given second chances, and I do not subscribe to the theory that once a thief always a thief because if that were the case, then all we’d be in life was the sum of our mistakes without the possibility of redress.

Will some of those to whom we extend grace and offer a second chance disappoint us anew? Yes, some will, perhaps most will, but there are also instances when that one act of kindness or grace will have such an impact on the individual that it will change the trajectory of their entire life.

Given that for the past thirty years our ministry has run an orphanage, and we’ve had hundreds of children pass through our doors, I can confirm that some of the worst cases, those deemed troubled souls whose final destination would likely be prison, were utterly transformed by the love, care, compassion, and patience extended to them by those who labored on their behalf.

Especially when it comes to the young with histories of abuse and family trauma, the idea of being loved is such a foreign concept at first that they don’t know how to react or process the notion that someone genuinely cares for them.

For someone with no baseline and no understanding of what love is, telling them that Jesus loves them and that you love them too may yield no immediate results. To them, it’s just another word, absent context or understanding, but as time passes and the word becomes action, demonstrated repeatedly in real-time, the walls they’ve built up around their heart begin to crumble, and they allow themselves to feel this once alien concept for themselves.

God didn’t just say He loved mankind. He demonstrated His love by sending Jesus, who likewise demonstrated His love by freely giving His life so that all who believe in Him would not perish but have everlasting life. Love is not a word; love is an action.

You can tell someone you love them a thousand times, and they may doubt you, but show that you love them once, and they will know with certainty that you do. We don’t have to guess at whether God loves us or not. He has proven it, beyond a shadow of doubt, and even in the worst of circumstances, we have full assurance that it is so. There is nothing more God can do beyond what He has already done to prove His love for you and me. That manner of love demands reciprocity. It demands fidelity and loyalty, obedience, and faithfulness.

1 John 3:1-3, “Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.”   

Bildad’s words were not anchored in love. Even though love is often corrective, this was not the case, as his pride and arrogance in his own self-assessed wisdom and his presumption that Job had done wickedness drove his actions rather than a genuine desire to see Job restored. 

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job CXC

 If Bildad’s words were not targeted at Job, but rather proffered as a generalization regarding the way of the wicked, they would have made for a decent proverb, perhaps even one of the great cautionary summations of all time regarding wickedness and why it should not be entertained, practiced, or pursued.

Try as one might to put lipstick on a pig, in the light of day, it’s still a pig. Try as the wicked might to insist that wickedness is not something to be shunned but rather embraced, not something to flee from but pursue, the walking disasters they eventually become nullify their insistence that the fleeting momentary pleasures to which they succumbed were worth losing their wives, husbands, children, dignity, or purpose. The world is full of cautionary tales from all walks of life as to what wickedness produces in the hearts and lives of men.

Although their journeys might differ, and the paths they chose may be dissimilar at their genesis, their destination is always the same. Wickedness cannot produce nobility. Wickedness cannot produce virtue. All that wickedness produces is pain, loss, bitterness, and death.

Trying to cope with the aftermath of what sin has wrought in the lives of those who gave into it has become a cottage industry nowadays. You don’t have to look hard to find countless individuals trying to smile through the tears, insisting that although they’ve made a mess of their lives and their choices brought them lower than they thought they could ever descend, it’s still the path they would have chosen given the benefit of hindsight, because they cling to the misguided hope that they will rebuild themselves on their own having grown from the experience of self-sabotaging their entire existence.

They refuse to admit that they got played. They refuse to acknowledge that they cannonballed into a snare set out by the enemy because they were not being watchful or perceptive enough to realize where their choices were leading them.

It’s a hard sell on the best of days. You’re trying to convince everyone, including yourself, that the best possible choice you could have made put you in a position where, if you are diligent, disciplined, and self-aware, it will take you a good decade to claw yourself back to even. Then again, for most today, accountability is like kryptonite, and they’d rather muddle through life suffering endless defeats than humble themselves in repentance at the foot of the cross.

Some people don’t know how good they have it or how blessed they are until what they took for granted slips through their fingers, and it's gone. Whether it’s a good husband, a good wife, a good job, good health, or a place to call home, it’s the most important things that we often take for granted, assuming they will always be there, within reach whenever we require them, failing to understand the fleeting nature of everything.

Failing to acknowledge that, save for God, nothing we assign permanence to is guaranteed to remain as it is, we don’t appreciate or show gratitude for the countless blessings bestowed upon us on a given day, allowing our hearts to gravitate toward the dangerous environment of feeling as though we are entitled to everything and more.

If you have a good marriage, consistent employment, a home, mobility, or the blessing of waking up on a given morning without your body making noises reminiscent of breaking celery sticks, it’s all grace. It’s not something we earned, deserved, or merited; it’s something God gifted us. Every sunrise, every sunset, and every breath in between is a gift! We do not serve God because of what He gives us, but for who He is. It’s His presence we yearn for and desire, not some material thing we think we can get if we pretend to love Him.

Although Bildad is right about the lot of the wicked, he only paints half the picture. It’s like seeing a painting of a sandy beach, with palm trees off in the distance, but there being no sky, or clouds, or sun in the upper portion. You realize something is missing immediately, and it’s not difficult to determine that it’s incomplete.

Suffering, hardship, trials, and travails are not exclusive to the wicked, but the presence of God is exclusive to the righteous. The Word of God does not promise us a life of ease and comfort, absent valleys, testing, or adversity, but it does promise us that when we pass through the waters, He will be with us, and when we walk through the fire, we will not be burned.

There is never an insinuation, implicit or explicit, that the children of God will circumvent both the water and the fire. We were never promised to be spared these things. What we were promised is that God would be with us every step of the way, and when all seems lost, when the last tethers of hope seem to be unraveling, we will see His mighty hand at work, and though we walk through the fire that every sense is telling us will consume us and turn us to ash, not only will we not be burned, but the flame will not scorch us.

There is a growing sentiment within the household of faith that God owes us something. What that something is varies from individual to individual, but the overarching theme is that we are owed, and anything we receive is just a debt God decided to pay. It would have been nice if He’d tacked on some interest, too, but maybe what we got is just the first installment. What those who share this sentiment fail to realize is that if we got what we deserved, there would be a few billion piles of ash scattered about the earth, and not much else.

If the attitude of the heart is not right, nothing else is right. Not your prayers, not your worship, not your praise, not your giving, none of it! If the attitude of the heart isn’t right, nothing else can be! 

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job CLXXXIX

 Job 18:5-9, “The light of the wicked indeed goes out, and the flame of his fire does not shine. The light is dark in his tent, and his lamp beside him is put out. The steps of his strength are shortened, and his own counsel casts him down. For he is cast into a net by his own feet, and he walks into a snare. The net takes him by the heel, and a snare lays hold of him.”

Generally speaking, what Bildad was saying was not untrue. In this particular instance, because what he was saying was targeted at Job, a man whom God deemed blameless and upright, it was. We can’t broad-brush every situation and draw conclusions based on historical precedent. There are times when exceptions to the well-established rules arise, and if we harden our hearts and shut up our ears, refusing to hear those we are accusing, we just might be judging wrongly, and inconsistently with the heart of God.

But I’m just defending the truth, brother! It may be that it’s how you see it, but you’re insinuating that because the light of the wicked goes out, and the flame of his fire does not shine, and this is occurring in real time to someone, they must be in the camp of the wicked, and you allow for no other explanation.

There are absolute truths we must defend to our dying breath, such as Jesus being the way, the truth, and the life, and that no man can come to the Father but by Him, but defending these truths and insisting upon someone’s wickedness because they are suffering or going through a trial are two separate issues. When we’re quick to accuse, assume, insist, and insinuate upon another’s sin or wickedness, yet become timid and reticent to defend the name of Jesus, it’s not only telling, but something that ought to be so alarming to us that we search our hearts and see if there are any deep-seated issues we must deal with.

It’s easy to kick a man while he’s down because odds are he can’t defend himself. You don’t run the risk of getting bruised, beaten, or vanquished by lashing out against someone who is defenseless, as you would if you stood toe to toe with the enemy of your soul. It takes a special kind of cruelty to relish the thought of heaping scorn upon someone who’s already scraping the bottom of the barrel when it comes to hope, but some souls feel vindicated in doing so, believing that they will be deemed more righteous still if they gleefully kick at the man lying in the dirt waiting to die.

There is something to be said for extending grace to those who are at their wits' end. I’m not talking about condoning sin, but rather about not jumping to conclusions and insisting that someone has sinned just because they are going through a season of trial. These are two separate issues, and while we are to confront sin in the camp, expose it, and tear it out from the root, it is unbiblical to become the accuser of the brethren because we’ve concluded that wickedness must exist because otherwise the individual in question would not be tested to such extremes.

If you can’t tell the difference, if you don’t know which is which, silence is your best course of action until the evidence supports your conclusion on the matter. If no evidence is forthcoming, then you must allow for the very real possibility that there is no wickedness, and what is occurring is something beyond your understanding.

This isn’t communist Russia. Our position ought not to be ‘show me the man, and I’ll show you the crime’, but rather ‘Lord, shed light on this matter, and let your heart be my heart in this situation.’

To Bildad and his friends, being right was the only thing that mattered. They took their initial impression of the situation and built a case against Job to confirm their prejudices, not allowing for his words, his pleas, his tears, and his prayers to sway them because it wasn’t about whether or not Job had sinned, but rather proving that he had sinned because they deemed he had.

Some people will continue to insist they are right even when they’re proven wrong because allowing for the possibility that they misread a situation, that there was a blind spot in their understanding, or that they jumped to conclusions before there was clarity is incomprehensible to them.

About two years into our marriage, my wife and I were living in Romania, and one day, I got a call from my dad asking if I could go pick up a cousin of mine at the train station. My dad’s entire family lived on the opposite side of the country, and one of his nieces had decided to visit. Since I had nothing planned that couldn’t wait, I told him I would and showed up at the station a few minutes before the train was to arrive.

My cousin got off the train, we hugged, I led her to my car, and we drove to the orphanage where I knew my dad to be. Within that fifteen-minute window, someone who knew my wife and me, and had seen me at the station, took time out of their busy day to hurriedly call my wife and insist that I was stepping out on her.

“I saw him, Monica. I saw him hug another woman, and they got in his car and drove away!”

My wife had already gone to work by the time my dad called, so she didn’t know anything about the cousin or that I had to pick her up from the train station. Even so, she knew me well enough to know that what I had been accused of was uncharacteristic of my nature.

The seed had been planted, however, and that night as we were getting ready for bed she innocently asked, ‘What did you do today?’, to which I answered, ‘I picked up my cousin from the train station, took her to the orphanage, spent some time there, then went to dinner with her and my dad.’

The next day, she called the friend who felt the need to call her and tell her she’d seen me with a strange woman, and explained the situation, to which the friend answered, ‘That was quick thinking on his part. I’m sure there’s something more to the story.’

That was the day my wife stopped calling the individual her friend. Just because you want to be right about someone or something, it doesn’t mean you are. Be humble enough to admit when you are wrong, if you are wrong, and wise enough to keep silent before you know all the facts of a given situation. Wise as they thought themselves to be, by their actions and harsh words, Job’s friends proved that wisdom had eluded them.  

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.