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.