Job CCCXXXII

 Job 39:26-30, “Does the hawk fly by your wisdom, and spread its wings toward the south? Does the eagle mount up at your command, and make its nest on high? On the rock it dwells and resides, on the crag of the rock and the stronghold. From there it spies out the prey; its eyes observe from afar. Its young ones suck up blood; and where the slain are, there it is.”

Were God addressing any one of a multitude of self-appointed modern-day prophets, by now they would have attempted to interrupt him at least a dozen times, shoehorning their opinions, attempting to highlight their own perceived wisdom, or even contradicting He who is eternal, Almighty, creator of all that is, without beginning or end.

Self-importance is a disease that is spreading like an out-of-control brushfire within the household of faith, and the damage it has wrought is unquantifiable. It doesn’t matter that those who suffer from this malady are proven wrong time and time again. Whenever the current topic du jour runs its course, and they realize they’re out of runway, they pivot to another just as irrelevant, tertiary, and pointless as the one before.

Oddly enough, they never get around to talking about Jesus, the existential need of Him, the sacrifice He made upon the cross, or that no man can come to the Father but by Him. Up until a couple of weeks ago, the alien disclosure was the thing everyone was talking about, not realizing it was a way of marketing a movie that ended up bombing at the box office anyway, but you couldn’t go anywhere without hearing the anxiety in people’s voices when discussing what it was they were ready to reveal to the world.

The hubristic among the godless even went so far as to gleefully insist that what they’ve got cooking would destroy the faith of countless Christians, put an end to Christianity itself, and upturn the world and what it considered the norm. That only goes to show how little they understand of faith. What was meant to be a bonfire was less than a fizzle, and since the silence must be filled with something, anything, no matter how inane or ridiculous, they jumped onto the next bandwagon, the next thing, that new and fresh take on an old idea that has been around for centuries.

Meanwhile, God is still on the throne; He is still in control, and He looks upon the machinations of men not with dread or a sense of foreboding, but with mockery and derision.

Psalm 2:1-4, “Why do the nations rage, and the people plot a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against His Anointed, saying, ‘Let us break their bonds in pieces and cast away Their cords from us.’ He who sits in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall hold them in derision.’”

If I had a dollar for every time someone insisted that they would drive a death nail into the heart of Christianity, I’d have a lot of dollars. The only instance I can think of where I would have more dollars still is if I had a dollar for every time someone predicted the date of the rapture that came and went only to be replaced by another date in the not-so-distant future.

Men have always plotted and schemed to find ways of casting away the existence of God, because while He remains, they cannot replace Him. Technology has gotten better, but the root of their desire remains the same: to be like God. From the onset, when there were only two walking in the garden, and no other human existed on the face of the earth, that was the offer, the temptation, the lure, enticement, and appeal: the day you eat of it you will be like God!

God only said you shouldn’t eat of the tree because He doesn’t want the competition. It’s selfish of Him to withhold the knowledge of good and evil, blessing and calamity from you, isn’t it? All it takes is one act of disobedience, one act of rebellion, for you to be on equal footing with Him, then you won’t have to submit to His will, you won’t have to submit to His purpose, you won’t have to submit to His sovereignty; you can do as you will, and He won’t be able to do a thing about it.

People can think themselves little gods until the One True God steps in and makes His voice heard above the roar of the thundering waves. He doesn’t have to shout; He doesn’t have to ball up His fists and get red in the face, because His whisper holds the authority of infinite power, and it’s no hard thing for Him to prove to the stiff-necked and proud that they are not what they claim to be.

Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord. That’s the first rule of living a life of peace, joy, and fulfillment. Notice that I did not say abundance and prosperity, because those rarely bring you peace, joy, or fulfillment. More often than not, the more men have, the more they want, endlessly churning themselves into a lather on the hamster wheel until their heart gives out and they fall off, only to be replaced by another who’s fallen into the snare of believing that this is where joy is found.

Men demand respect, reverence, and awe; they demand that you defer to their wisdom or the way they see things, but God deserves and is worthy of these things by the nature of who He is and all that He has done.

God’s not asking for something He does not deserve or isn’t owed. From commanding the morning and causing the dawn to know its place, to dividing a channel for the overflowing water, to causing the tender grass to grow, to binding the cluster of the Pleiades, or loosening the belt of Orion, to the ostrich, the horse, the hawk, and man himself, God spoke all into being, and governs them by His mighty hand.

He is worthy! He is worthy of all praise, all honor, all glory, and worship. He is worthy of our obedience, faithfulness, and service. When one is worthy, it means they merit the recognition assigned to them; they have earned it, and not simply implied that they have. He is worthy and none other, no matter how many might claim otherwise.     

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.