Job CCLXXXVIII

 Job 30:9-15, “And now I am their taunting song; yes, I am their byword. They abhor me, they keep far from me; they do not hesitate to spit in my face. Because He has loosed my bowstring and afflicted me, they have cast off restraint before me. At my right hand the rabble arises; they push away my feet, and they raise against me their ways of destruction. They break up my path, they promote my calamity; they have no helper. They come as broad breakers; under the ruinous storm they roll along. Terrors are turned upon me; they pursue my honor as the wind, and my prosperity has passed like a cloud.”

Men will flatter you, defer to you, feign respect, and speak smooth words to your face for as long as they believe they have something to gain from doing so. Those who do so with a vested interest or an ulterior motive were never truly friends or brothers but opportunists who will turn on you, savage your reputation, and spit in your face the instant they can no longer profit from your position, largesse, influence, or authority.

It is a hard-learned lesson that many once influential people, whose influence has waned, have had to learn the hard way, because true friends, friends who are there through the ups and downs, the thick and thin, the feast and the famine, are hard to come by, more so today than ever before.

Everyone seems to have an angle of some sort, and they feign friendship not because they want to be your friend but because they think you are the means by which they might attain what they really want, whatever that thing might be.

I’ll be the first to admit I have very few friends. The older I get, the fewer friends I seem to have, but those I consider friends, I’ve known for years on end. It’s not because I’m unfriendly, but because there is truth in the adage, once bitten, twice shy.

I’ve lived a long life in a short time, and events of the past left their mark. I would be a fool not to have learned from past experiences, and I’ve come to the point in life where calling someone a friend means something, and isn’t a word I throw out willy-nilly. If I deem someone my friend, then they’re my friend, and they remain so for no other reason than that I value our friendship.

The men of Job’s day had concluded there was nothing more they could gain from showing him deference, respecting him, or seeing him as an equal, and they cast off restraint before him. In modern parlance, they revealed their true nature, told him how they really felt, and there was no kindness or empathy in their judgment of him.

One of my biggest pet peeves and something I cannot abide is when a supposed friend exploits another whom they likewise deem a friend. Every time I hear someone ask for a service, then follow up with, “Can I get the friend discount?” it doesn’t sit well with me because if someone’s my friend, my purpose shouldn’t be to try to shortchange them.

I would have needed the job done regardless, whether by him or another, so my asking for a discounted rate just because we are acquainted only goes to show how much value I place on the relationship.

Whether it's car repair or lawn maintenance, I do my best to give my business to people I know and deem as friends. Never once have I gone in for an oil change or had someone come and spray for weeds, only to turn around and demand a discounted rate because we’re friends. They have families to feed and roofs to keep over their heads, and if I am in a position to hire them for the job, I expect no special favors because of our friendship.

Some have even offered to cut me a deal, and I politely declined because our friendship meant more to me than the five bucks I would have saved had I accepted. By the same token, I expect the friends with whom I do business to be fair and not upcharge me just because of our friendship. I’ve had that happen a time or two, and the instant I discovered it, our friendship soured and was never the same again.  

One knows their true friends in times of hardship and adversity. When he was the greatest of all the people of the East, there was no shortage of men trying to ingratiate themselves with Job. Now that his prosperity had passed like a cloud and there was nothing they could gain from him, they abhorred him, kept far from him, and spat in his face.

Job’s character had been consistent throughout. Theirs had not. He had done nothing to warrant their animus or their taunting. He had not changed; they’d just revealed their true selves in the absence of any perceived gain from pretending to be his friends.

If you’ve ever had someone you deemed a friend turn their back on you, and wracked your brain as to what you may have done to cause such drastic change, it likely wasn’t you, and it was nothing you did. All that happened is that they concluded they could not gain what they’d planned on gaining from the feigned friendship, and as such, let the mask slip and revealed their true nature.

As children of God, it is our duty to employ wisdom in all things, and that includes choosing our friends. Choose your friend wisely because if you fail to do so, if the day ever comes when you will have to count on them, they’ll vanish like fog in the midday sun.

As my wife is fond of saying, a true friend isn’t someone who shows up for the feast, but someone who helps clean up after. When all the revelers have gone, full bellies and engaging conversation in tow, it’s the couple of people that stayed behind to help with the dishes and the trash and the disarray of it all that are true friends. If you don’t know someone like that, then be that someone, and if you’ve fallen short of being that someone, it’s never too late to start.  

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.