Job CCLXXV

 Job 27:18-23, “He builds his house like a moth, like a booth which a watchman makes. The rich man will lie down, but not be gathered up; he opens his eyes, and he is no more. Terrors overtake him like a flood; a tempest steals him away in the night. The east wind carries him away, and he is gone; it sweeps him out of his place. It hurls against him and does not spare; he flees desperately from its power. Men shall clap their hands at him, and shall hiss him out of his place.”

The absence of light leads those living in darkness to believe that darkness is all there is to life. They cannot fathom the beauty of the light of Christ, nor can they reconcile the joy of the believer with the misery they experience in their daily lives.

They convince themselves that status will make them happy, or money, or fame, only to discover that after they’ve sacrificed their lives in pursuit of that one thing they believed would fulfill them, it leaves them just as cold and empty as before. Maybe the next thing will work, or maybe the one after that, is what they tell themselves only to discover the same dead end, the same emptiness, and the ever-present awareness that something is missing. Not something irrelevant or tertiary, but something of paramount importance and of an existential nature.  

It is because they cannot understand or perceive the joy that surpasses understanding that the presence of Christ in one’s heart produces that they lash out, whether in anger, frustration, bitterness, or resentment, and set out to demean, mock, ridicule, and look down upon the followers of Jesus with all the vitriol they can muster.

Their joy, purpose, and fulfillment are anchored to the physical, to things they can touch and hold and boast about, not understanding that any joy they might experience is only temporary, a fleeting emotion that they will attempt to grasp anew only to watch it slip through their fingers, perpetually chasing after the new thing, almost instantly dissatisfied with the thing they strived to acquire and sacrificed for, and believed would bring them both satisfaction and validation.

Those who have a product to sell are overjoyed that the culture of consumerism this generation has created has so engulfed the minds and hearts of most, because only in this constant state of delusion that some new phone, car, or piece of clothing will bring about this ever-elusive joy can they keep the hamsters on the hamster wheel, perpetually dissatisfied with what they have, and greedily eying what they don’t.

Some awake from their stupor and, in a moment of epiphany, ask, to what end, but most feel compelled to keep doing what they’ve always done, even though it never produces different results.

If, for the past six iterations, you were first in line for the newest version of the iPhone, thinking this would be the moment you would know true joy, only to be disheartened two days later, understand that the pattern will hold for the next sixty iterations of it. The emotional rollercoaster will end the same way as before, because nothing on earth satisfies, fulfills, or gives one purpose in perpetuity.

This is the point Job was trying to make to his friends, in the hope that they would see his situation for what it was rather than throw him in the same basket as the wicked. His joy never came from the things he possessed but from his relationship with the Almighty. He did not see his wealth as any sort of validation, rather as a blessing from God that He could take away as He saw fit, and Job would not begrudge Him.

The things Job was saying regarding the wicked were similar to what his three friends had said about them, but though they may have been true, generally speaking, they were not true when it came to Job. Sometimes we can speak a general truth to an individual person, and though it may be factual, it does not apply to that person in that moment, given their situation.    

As a general rule, telling someone to go for a walk as the weather allows is solid advice. It has a multitude of health benefits: it’s good for your heart, and you may even get some vitamin D. But when you tell someone in a wheelchair that they should be walking more, it makes no sense and is useless advice.

Job’s friends had tirelessly enumerated the lot of the wicked to him; the only problem was that Job was not a wicked man as they’d concluded. Job, too, agreed with them that the east wind carries the wicked away, sweeps him out of his place, hurls him, and does not spare, but Job made it clear that he was not counted among them.

A man who trusts in his possessions lives in constant fear of losing them. A man whose identity is wrapped up in his position will be obsessed with solidifying it and ensuring that no one can kick him off his perch. Any joy they might have had from having achieved what their heart desired is summarily doused by the constant fear of losing it.

The greatest folly in this way of thinking is not acknowledging the reality that sooner or later, whether in ten years or fifty, we will all return to the dust of the earth, no matter how much we’ve built up, and squirreled away, or how high up the corporate ladder we managed to climb. To place one’s hope in the things of this earth, or to make what we possess the determining factor in whether we have peace, joy, and fulfillment, is so myopic as to be pitiable.

1 John 2:17, “And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.”

I don’t expect those of the world to know better, but I do expect the household of faith to. Our goals, desires, what animates us and gives us purpose must be different than those of the world because we are no longer of the world but belong to God, having been bought with a price, redeemed from darkness, and reconciled to Him.     

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.