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.