Job CCCLV

Once the dust settles, everyone comes out of the woodwork insisting they were by your side all along. When you’re in the midst of being battered and bruised, radio silence is the expectation du jour, with those only pretending to be your friends or fellow soldiers of the cross giving you a wide berth as though you were toxic, or your hardship was somehow contagious, but once you get through it, they reappear like mushrooms after a summer rain, as if out of nowhere.

Those who strive for honesty will proffer an apology of some sort, unwilling to meet your eyes for fear that the guilt they feel is too plainly written therein, while those who don’t will insist they were always there, holding your hand, but you were just too busy to notice.

The only one you need standing beside you to get through the fire and out the other side is God. If God stands with you, all is well, will end well, and there’s nothing the devil can do to change the course that God has established if you remain faithful to Him.

Where were all of Job’s brothers, sisters, and those who had been his acquaintances while he sat on an ash heap scratching at himself with a potsherd? Unhelpful as they had been in the final analysis, at least Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar had shown up. At least they’d traveled from afar to try and comfort their friend. Other than Job’s wife, nothing was mentioned of his surviving extended family or acquaintances until the last chapter of the book. Once they’d learned of his downfall, they were nowhere to be found, yet now that he had been restored, and doubly so, they were quick to make amends.

“Then all his brothers, all his sisters, and all those who had been acquaintances before, came to him and ate food with him in his house; and they consoled him and comforted him for all the adversity the Lord had brought upon him.”

There are always bound to be men highlighting their bravery after a battle is won, and more often than not the loudest ones were never on the front line. The boisterous, self-aggrandizing, and those insisting that without them the battle would have been lost usually never saw the whites of the enemy’s eyes, nor did they go toe-to-toe in a life-or-death struggle. Those that do are usually quiet, reserved, unwilling to revisit the horrors of battle, grateful to be alive, and looking forward to returning to their loved ones.

The household of faith is overflowing with what amounts to stolen valor, and it’s those who’ve never seen a day of spiritual warfare that are the loudest, insisting that they are the warriors Jeremiah, Isaiah, Moses, and Job wished they’d been.

The problem is that boasts and theatrics will only get you so far. At the end of the day, you will have to answer for pretending to be something you weren’t, not to men, but to God. You will be called to account for having pretended to be a warrior without possessing armor, or insisting you were on the battlefield without the scars to show for it, when all you were was a teller of fables, regurgitating the lives others have lived, pretending as though it was your own.

The real ones know that the victory was not of their own making, design, or due to their knowledge of battle stratagem. They understand that victory was had by the power of God residing in them, and they are but servants, soldiers, vessels who could do nothing if they remained empty and were not filled with His presence.

The funny thing is that some of the most powerfully used men of God that I have been honored to know throughout the years never boasted of themselves, never attempted to stand in the spotlight, or insisted they were spiritually superior to anyone else. To the last, they were humble men who humbled themselves, picked up their crosses, and followed after Jesus every day, like everyone else.

Beware the man who elevates himself above the station of servant, or thinks himself special in his own eyes. Beware the individual for whom being known by a particular title is more important than being known for their humility.

Yes, Job’s brothers, sisters, and acquaintances had wronged him, just as Joseph’s brothers would later wrong him, yet the reaction of both men is almost identical in that they did not resent, browbeat, or hold it over their heads, but forgave. Job did not turn them away, but ate food with them in his house, and even at this late hour, although Job understood God’s plan, his brothers and sisters did not.

They still assumed that the adversity that had come upon him was brought upon him by the Lord. They still viewed God as a cruel taskmaster who took joy in seeing his servants suffer, rather than understanding that although God had allowed Satan to sift Job, it was not God doing the sifting Himself.

This distinction matters because it shapes the lens through which we view God. Yes, God allowed Job’s testing, and the devil went as far as he could go in attempting to sway Job into abandoning his hope, but even then there were guardrails and limitations placed on the devil by which he had to abide. Understand that were Satan allowed to run loose and do as he willed, there would be nothing of this world but ash and ruin. There is no sympathy, empathy, kindness, gentleness, or mercy when it comes to the enemy of our souls. He takes delight in suffering; nothing makes him squeamish or think he’s gone too far, and any armistice the church thinks it has with him is no less than an illusion.

If God desired to crush Job, it would have been done on day one, so utterly and completely that though he had once been the greatest of all the people of the East, his name would have been a long-forgotten byword within a generation. God allowed Job’s testing, not his destruction. Job proved faithful, and now all that had been lost during his testing was restored, and doubly so.

Mark 10:29-30, “So Jesus answered and said, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for My sake and the gospel’s, who shall not receive a hundredfold now in this time – houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions – and in the age to come, eternal life.”’

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.