Job CCLXXXI

 I am not what one might call a meticulous planner or orderly when it comes to my personal space. At a glance, it looks like some small explosive device has gone off, and what remains are the scattered remnants of something that was once a workspace, but for me, it’s just another Tuesday. I know where everything is amidst the clutter that is my desk, whether a napkin with a few thoughts from a year ago, or a complete manuscript from a month ago, it may not seem like it to any sane person that happens to see it for the first time, but the chaos is an illusion.

Whether one calls it controlled or ordered chaos, it’s only so because they were not the ones responsible for putting everything where it lies; I was, and as such, I am the only one who knows where to find anything I’m looking for in the manner of a heartbeat or two.

Because it’s my desk, and they’re my things, I also know if anyone moved anything while I was not present. It doesn’t have to be an entire reshuffling of the clutter for me to notice; just a pen, a piece of paper, or some small thing out of place is enough for me to notice that things are not as I left them the last time I was there.

Whether man sees it or not, whether he chooses to acknowledge it or not, there is a divine order to all things on the earth, beneath the earth, in the realm of the seen and unseen alike, perfectly established and well thought out. What may seem chaotic to us, given our limited ability to perceive such things, is nothing less than the perfect synchronicity of billions upon billions of moving parts. You can take one thing on its own, like the human body, and be in awe of its complexity, all that is required for it to function optimally, and everything that takes place at a cellular level every time you inhale and exhale. That complexity, that wonder, is replicated a billion times over in everything that surrounds us, while being interdependent, wonderfully woven together, harmonious, and complementary.

In his ignorance, man can brush it off as a cosmic accident, but Job gives credit where credit is due and reveals the meticulous thought process that went into what we take for granted most days. This was no happy accident. This was the master architect, artist, and creator, looking to the ends of the earth, seeing under the whole heavens, establishing a weight for the wind, and apportioning the waters by measure. There were no overlooked details, there was nothing left to chance, and everything was put in its appropriate place, established, and spoken into existence.

From the first chapter of Genesis, we read the history of creation, and although it was no great feat for God, it was no great feat because He is God. None other could speak the universe into being, none other could speak light into existence, or separate the waters from the waters by speaking the firmament into existence. All that we see, from the grass to the trees, to the abundance of the creatures in the sea, and the birds flying in the air, the cattle, creeping things, and the beasts of the earth, were spoken into existence by the God we serve.

Yes, He is worthy of glory, He is worthy of praise, our awe of Him is justified because He is awe-inspiring. Man’s limited understanding of Him does not limit God. He is sovereign and supreme over all creation, and that includes man, try as man might to think himself on equal footing with Him.

This same God who spoke creation into being, this same God who made a law for the rain, and a path for the thunderbolt, turns His focus on His creation, and speaks to man directly. There is no mystery in His declaration; it’s not something that requires a degree to understand, because God does not speak in riddles, He does not needlessly complicate the way we ought to follow, nor does He have any ulterior motives when addressing the crown jewel of His creation, and the only one made in His image.

And to man He said, ‘Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding.’

It couldn’t be that simple, could it? There must be more to wisdom than the fear of the Lord, mustn’t there? Perhaps some astrological charts having to do with planetary alignments, some grafts pertaining to interdimensional travel, or perhaps a white paper on multiverses, but it can’t be as simple as the fear of the Lord. It is because God declared it so.

He saw wisdom and declared it, and what He declared is that the fear of the Lord is wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding. Nothing of what anyone else says matters on the topic because God has established the truth of it, and declared it to be so.

When we attempt to overcomplicate matters or weigh in with our minuscule intellect, insisting that God didn’t mean what He said, we fall into the same snare as Eve did when encountering the serpent in the garden. Had God indeed said that the fear of the Lord is wisdom? Yes, He did! That should be the end of the conversation, the end of the debate, and the end of the discussion.

What God commanded Adam and Eve was clear enough, yet the enemy was able to convince Eve that God hadn’t said what He clearly had by planting seeds of doubt and reshaping the narrative to reach his intended goal. The same tactics are employed to this day, wherein men take the Word and twist it to fit their predetermined narratives rather than submit to its authority and obey it as it ought to be obeyed.

To know what God said, you must know what God said, and you can know what God said by knowing His Word. The easiest prey the enemy catches in his snare are those who do not know the Word of God for themselves. They do not take the time to read it, know it, understand it, or hide it in their heart, and when he comes along whispering an approximation of truth but not the truth, they get caught up in his net, soon to be devoured if they do not find a means of escape.   

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Job CCLXXX

 Where can wisdom be found? From where does wisdom come? Two questions that Job answers conclusively, but first, he tells us where wisdom is not, cannot, and will not be found. It is not among the living, it is not in the deep, it is not in the sea, it is concealed from the birds of the air who soar high above the earth, and though Destruction and Death have heard a report about it with their ears, they cannot lay claim to it, or pretend as though they possess it.

By this point, we’re running out of runway. One after the other, the places where men think wisdom might be found have been thoroughly eliminated, until only one place remains: in God! One source, that’s all. Not multiple sources gushing forth the same wisdom, but one source that possesses true and divine wisdom. Anything else, anyone else, any other god trying to lay claim to possessing wisdom is no less than a liar and a deceiver.

If God is unwilling to share the throne or allow for the possibility that wisdom can be found anywhere but in Him, why are those who insist they are following after Him so quick to try to do it on His behalf? It’s not as though God gave them a special exemption to try and make a deal on His behalf, and it required that He share authority and wisdom with lesser gods. It’s likewise not as though God has had a change of heart, and what He would have never done a few thousand years ago is something He might be considering now.

It has not gone unnoticed that Destruction and Death are capitalized, implying that they are independent, individual entities of some kind, rather than merely vague, opaque terms for something in the general ethos of men throughout. It doesn’t matter where you’re from, how you grew up, or what your level of education is; everyone understands the idea of destruction and death.

Whatever form destruction might take, whether earthquake, hurricane, volcano, or tornado, it is well defined and recognizable. The same can be said of death, wherein no matter what form it takes, it is readily seen for what it is and recognized as such.  

As Job describes them, they are not just abstract ideas, but Destruction and Death are distinct, whether creatures or creations, and given what we know of both death and destruction, it is not as though they are without power of their own. Even so, they cannot claim to possess wisdom, only that they’d heard of it.

Only after firmly establishing where wisdom cannot be found does Job pull back the curtain and reveal that of all that exists in this universe, whether seen or unseen, only God understands its way and knows its place. That’s it: one of one.

Psalm 104:24-26, “O Lord, how manifold are Your works! In wisdom You have made them all. The earth is full of Your possessions – this great and wide sea, in which are innumerable teeming things, living things both small and great. There the ships sail about; there is that Leviathan which You made to play there.”

Few passages in scripture encapsulate the sovereign power, creation, and creativity of God better than the hundred and fourth psalm, and the underlying foundation that holds it all together is that God made all things in wisdom. Whether great or small, of the sea and without, everything God spoke into being was purposeful and precise, well-ordered and established that they might not only survive but thrive in the places He created for them.

Even trying to understand and perceive all the interdependent ecosystems operating in tandem on this earth is enough to make one’s brain freeze and give up altogether. Yet we are expected to believe that all of this, from the blade of grass to the bumblebee to the teaming ocean life to man himself, was a happy, fortuitous, even serendipitous accident.

Well, you see, there was a bang, but not any bang, a big bang, and then millions of years later, whammo-blammo, here we all are screaming at the barista because she ran out of soy milk before it was our turn. Intelligent design? Nah, that’s just for the uneducated, the knuckle draggers, the rubes, the people who need to believe in a higher power to give their lives meaning. By the way, how do you like my third septum ring? It goes well with the new shade of blue I painted my hair, don’t you think? But as I was saying, only the unintelligent cling to these patriarchal norms about divinity and God, because they feel like they have to fit in.

It takes more faith to believe that everything we can see was a happy accident, that everything came together perfectly, seamlessly, and singularly all on its own for no other reason than happenstance, than it does to believe that God spoke it into existence, making everything in wisdom.

For the last couple of years my wife has gotten into bread-baking aggressively, so much so that she has her own sourdough starter, experiments with different types of flour, half the fridge is usually full of resting dough because apparently that’s a thing, but I could just imagine what her reaction would be if I were to one day open the oven, see a beautiful bread, and exclaim, “who put that there? That’s a lovely bread, what are the odds that it came together all on its own?”

Absurd, I know, but it’s not far off the mark when considering the way some people view creation, the world, and the universe beyond. We see it, have no clue the painstaking effort it took to bring it together, shrug our shoulders, and say, wow, lucky us this thing magically pulled itself together in such a way as to keep us from being incinerated one moment and turned into icicles the next. What quirk of fate, that. Would have hated to see what would have happened if any of the hundred billion billion things that could have gone wrong had gone wrong. I guess we’re just lucky none of them did. Happy accident, indeed.

Psalm 14:1-2, “The fool has said in his heart, ‘there is no God.’ They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none who does good. The Lord looks down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there are any who understand, who seek God.”

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job CCLXXIX

 Job 28:20-28, “From where then does wisdom come? And where is the place of understanding? It is hidden from the eyes of all living, and concealed from the birds of the air. Destruction and Death say, ‘We have heard a report about it with our ears.’ God understands its way, and He knows its place. For He looks to the ends of the earth, and sees under the whole heavens, to establish a weight for the wind, and apportion the waters by measure. When He made a law for the rain, and a path for the thunderbolt, then He saw wisdom and declared it; He prepared it, indeed, He searched it out. And to man He said, ‘Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding.’”

If the twenty-eight chapter of Job were a song, from where does wisdom come, and where is the place of understanding would be the chorus that repeats between each verse. It is the defining question of this chapter, and Job asks it rhetorically because he already knew the answer to this most pressing question.

Given that Job insists that wisdom is hidden from the eyes of all living, what we deem as wisdom is but a muddled approximation rather than the real thing if God is not the source, the wellspring, and the cornerstone of it.

Believing oneself wise isn’t the same as being wise, and as Paul points out, there are many who, having professed to be wise, became fools. How so? Because their wisdom was a byproduct of their inner thoughts, their own minds, and their wicked hearts, having nothing to do with anything outside themselves and their desires. True wisdom comes from outside ourselves. Its source must be external, its nature divine, and its purpose to reveal the glory of God.

The further one gets from the source of something, the greater the chance it will be diluted or contain impurities. There’s a bottled water company whose claim to fame is that it is bottled at the source, directly from some aquifer in Fiji, and because of this one reason, they charge three times what other waters cost, and still manage to have a loyal clientele who shell out the extra money for the privilege. Whether or not it's worth it is debatable, but at least for some people it is, and they’re willing to pay the extra cost.

When it comes to true wisdom, one can only find it at the source, and unlike the aforementioned water, it is always worth acquiring, no matter the effort it takes.

Rather than chase after men who claim to have what is, at best, second-hand wisdom, why not go straight to the source? Why not tap into the spring itself rather than get a water jug that’s been sitting in a hot truck from a third party?

Are you saying we should all fly to Fiji to drink directly from the Viti Levu aquifer? No, that would be impractical. What I am saying is that we can go to God and gain wisdom directly from Him. Just like the water, if you want wisdom straight from the source, it will not come to you; you must go to it. You must make the effort to seek it out and assign enough value to it that you will not balk at the effort required to attain it.

But you don’t understand; the second-hand wisdom has added flavors and electrolytes, comes in a fancy bottle with a mountain etched into it, and the only effort it requires is that I log on to Facebook to acquire it. I can get all the second-hand wisdom I could ever consume from the comfort of my own home while in my pajamas. There are so many varieties to pick from, so many favors to sample, and the effort I’m required to put in is minimal. True enough, but the only question you should be asking, the only question that matters, is whether or not it’s pure. Is what men are claiming to be true wisdom really that, or is it just a fancy bottle filled to the brim with bath water and a pinch of lemon to mask its bitter taste?

There is no doubt as to the purity of the wisdom when God is the source. There is no wondering if anything is missing, or if there’s too much of one thing or another, because you know that what He gives is perfect, lacking nothing, and abundant in its benefits.

You may not know this, but some people will go to great lengths to complicate what should be simple. They will do their utmost to put their spin on wisdom, add to it, massage it, sometimes twist it to the point that it’s no longer what it claims to be, far from it in fact.

Thankfully, it hasn’t made its way stateside, at least that I’m aware of, but while visiting the homeland a couple of years ago, I ran into something that threatened to make me wretch right there in the grocery store aisle. It was called aloe vera water, and yes, it looked as disgusting as it sounds. It was water with globules of aloe vera floating in it, looking like some failed science experiment, but as I stood there with a grossed-out look on my face, no less than three people picked up a bottle.

Whatever it was, however it had started out, what was in those bottles could no longer be defined as water. Call it what you will, but don’t call it what it isn’t. When you combine sugar, lemons, and water, it’s no longer water but lemonade. When you attempt to mix feelings, emotions, cultural ethos, and personal opinion with divine wisdom, it’s no longer wisdom.

We were given a glimpse of what the world will look like in these last days, and among the many signs heralding the return of Christ, we were told there would be a disproportionate number of souls turning their ears from the truth and turning aside to fables. We must be ever wary that we are not counted among them, and the only way we can ensure it is to go to the source of truth, the source of wisdom, the source of direction for the path we trod and submit to His authority in all things. 

Yes, going to the source may be more time-consuming than lapping up whatever is on offer as the day’s special, but it is well worth the effort, and the only means by which true wisdom is attained.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job CCLXXVIII

 Job 28:13-19, “Man does not know its value, nor is it found in the land of the living. The deep says, ‘It is not in me’, and the sea says, ‘It is not with me.’ It cannot be purchased for gold, nor can silver be weighed for its price. It cannot be valued in the gold of Ophir, in precious onyx or sapphire. Neither gold nor crystal can equal it, nor can it be exchanged for jewelry of fine gold. No mention shall be made of coral or quartz, for the price of wisdom is above rubies. The topaz of Ethiopia cannot equal it, nor can it be valued in pure gold.”

If men knew the value of wisdom, it would become their lifelong, singular pursuit. Nothing else would have equal prominence in their life; there would be no shiny thing to distract them from seeking it out, and as Job said, there is no place you can find it but in God. It’s neither in the land of the living, the deep, or the sea, and though men might search for it in these places, they will come up short, empty-handed, no matter how diligent they are in their quest.

If one does not understand the value of wisdom, they will never take the time, make the effort, or dedicate themselves to pursuing it. Understanding the value of wisdom is where it all begins. In the rare moments I have some free time, I enjoy going to estate sales. If you don’t know what an estate sale is, it’s usually the offspring of the recently deceased homeowner selling all their earthly possessions just to be rid of them. More often than not, the only real value they see in what their parents left behind is the home itself, treating the contents as little more than worthless baubles they need to clear out before they sell the home.

I was walking through one such home, late in the day, after countless others had gone through it, when I noticed a statue on a side table. For some reason, it caught my eye, and when I went to pick it up, it had weight to it, so much so that I knew it wasn’t plastic or anything of the sort but likely a bronze sculpture. Upon inspecting it more thoroughly, I also saw a signature on the back, hard to make out, but there nonetheless, and after a few more minutes of walking through the home, I asked the lady sitting behind the plastic table, hunching over her money drawer, how much she wanted for the statue.

“Ten dollars?” Her answer was in the form of a question, but not being one to haggle when I see no need for it, I pulled two five-dollar bills from my pocket and handed them to her.

I got home later that day, found the magnifying glass my girls had been trying to use to light a fire when the sun was out, and made out the signature on the back of the sculpture. It turned out to be a well-known sculptor whose creations regularly sold for low four-digit prices on the open market.

Others had passed by it and saw no value in it. Even though I did not know the details, I perceived value and was willing to pay $10 to find out if I was right. Some people see no value in a relationship with God and pass Him by. Others understand that His presence in their lives is priceless and are willing to pursue Him in lieu of the other things vying for their time. The beauty of it all is that if you seek Him, you will find Him, and in Him you will discover wisdom untold.        

True wisdom stems from intimacy, fellowship, and a relationship with God. There is no place where wisdom can be purchased, no matter how much one is willing to spend. There are no kiosks selling wisdom, there’s no online retailer you can order some from, and you won’t find someone on the street corner selling wisdom in transparent baggies. Wisdom is knowledge, experience, and good judgment all rolled up into one, and it’s not something that can be delegated, subcontracted, or farmed out to a third party.

You can’t hire a virtual assistant to make you wiser, nor can you employ someone to increase your level of wisdom. Job made this clear, yet we’re still, to this day, buying courses, going to conventions, and finding gurus who insist they can impart the wisdom of the ages for a small handling fee to one and all, for as long as seats are still available.

The truly remarkable thing is that the more we grow in wisdom, the more we acknowledge our own limitations and how little we know. A wise man will not boast of his wisdom, nor will the first thing he does once it is acquired be to try to monetize it somehow.

Anyone trying to sell you wisdom doesn’t have it to sell. What they’re selling you is a fake, a forgery, whether that entails instructing you to transcendentally meditate, open your third eye, dabble with Spiritism, or a glut of other forms of foolishness that they’ll attempt to push on you in lieu of reading the Word of God, and sitting with it, allowing it to take root, and treating it not as mere words on a page but food for your soul.

The sea knows its place, the deep knows its place, even the land of the living knows, and cannot feign wisdom when they know it does not reside with them. They do, however, know with whom wisdom resides, and every flower, every forest, every creature great and small, all things above the earth and beneath it, point to God. It’s not subtle. No one has to guess at it, no one has to wonder, because His invisible attributes are clearly seen and understood by the things that are made.

If man is too blind to see the evidence of God’s design, creation, and active participation in His creation, it is because he chooses to be so. It is because he does not want to deal with the implications of acknowledging God in all His glory, and what that would mean insofar as having to humble himself and submit to His will. Many would rather remain blind to the truth than see the light of His glory because it would compel a choice: either follow Him, or reject Him, obey Him, or be in rebellion against His commands.

As long as they don’t stand at that crossroads, as long as they don’t make the conscious choice to go to the left or to the right, God becomes a version of Schrodinger’s cat, wherein as long as it's still in the box it’s both alive and dead. As long as man delays wrestling with the reality of God, he can convince himself that God both is and isn’t real. It’s a disingenuous and cowardly position to be sure, but bravery nowadays is in short supply, and honesty even at the risk of having one’s reality shattered into a million pieces is rarer than a poor politician.

Either God exists, or He doesn’t. To insist that there is the possibility of a higher power existing somewhere in the cosmos is akin to being lukewarm. If one believes that God is real, present, and knowable, they are likened to being hot. If one does not believe, he is cold. If one, however, is content with being indifferent toward the answer to the most important question of one’s entire existence, then they are by all accounts deemed worthy of being pitied by great and small alike.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Job CCLXXVII

 Job 28:8-12, “The proud lions have not trodden it, nor has the fierce lion passed over it. He puts his hand on the flint; He overturns the mountains at the roots. He cuts out channels in the rocks, and his eye sees every precious thing. He dams up the streams from trickling; what is hidden he brings forth to light. But where can wisdom be found? And where is the place of understanding?”

It’s not that Job is looking down on or dismissing the impressive scale of human ingenuity. He gives credit to where credit is due, recalling what man can do when he puts his mind to it, from cutting channels in the rocks to overturning mountains at the roots, all in the pursuit of something that, when compared and contrasted with wisdom, is beggarly.

We know where to find ore; we know where to dig up sapphires; we figure out ways not only to find where they are but to get to them and acquire these things from the earth. But pray tell, where can wisdom be found?

If one does not know the source of all wisdom, then their quest to acquire it is far more daunting than mining for gold or digging in the earth for precious stones. Some men spend their entire lives in search of wisdom, never attaining it because no one ever pointed them in the right direction, never took the time to show them the source, and whatever they discover is mere table scraps if God is not at the center of their search.

We will go to great lengths to acquire the meaningless while putting no effort toward attaining the priceless. The absence of hunger for God, the things of God, and the ways of God, is the proof that both wisdom and understanding are far removed from us.

It all boils down to the value we place on the things around us. If I place more value on the things of this earth than the wisdom of God, then I will pursue those things more ardently than Him because I’ve assigned more value to them than I did in growing in God. It’s not that we don’t have the time, it’s that we don’t want to make the time. We refuse to structure our lives in such a way that God is first; we refuse to prioritize Him above all other things, and our lack of a prayer life, our lack of time in the Word, and our lack of being in His presence for any meaningful length of time reveal these truths. They are as self-evident as all men having been created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.

How is it that some men can pray upwards of three, four, five hours per day, while we can’t manage to spare ten minutes every morning? It’s not as though they have more time than we do, or have fewer worries than we do; it’s not as though they don’t have to earn their daily bread, or get the kids ready for school every morning. They make the time because fellowship with God is essential in their lives. He is an existential need, and they arrange their lives accordingly.

I sometimes wonder what some people will do in the presence of God, for all eternity, if they can’t spare a full hour every week to immerse themselves in the hearing of the Word, without being able to resist the urge to scroll Facebook or Instagram while the man tasked with rightly dividing it is doing his best not to lose his cool as new alerts keep going off in the sanctuary, and people consider them more important in the moment than hearing Scripture being read and taught.

Not to belabor the point, but you do realize that there’s no Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, or Rumble in heaven. When we rise incorruptible, when we are transformed in the blink of an eye, it won’t be with the latest iPhone strapped to our palm. For the life of me, I can’t reconcile how the same souls that are compelled to check the time after five minutes of corporate prayer, or ten minutes of worship, will glory in the presence of God without distraction for all eternity.

We’re already supposed to have a renewed mind, a new heart, new desires, and new pursuits. You don’t get those as a swag bag or a welcome gift as you stand before the pearly gates. If you’re waiting for heaven to have the desire to be in the presence of God, if you’re waiting for the marriage supper of the Lamb to want to fellowship with Him, then He is not the treasure you seek, and for the joy of which you surrender all else.

When I get to heaven, I’ll pray more, fast more, desire to know God more, grow my faith more, and walk in His ways more. That’s not the way it works, though. Heaven is the finish line, not the race, and in order to obtain the prize, we must run the race in such a way as to obtain it.

1 Corinthians 9:24-27, “Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it. And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown. Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air. But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.”

You are not running a race for a participation trophy. You are running the race to obtain the prize. The prize in question is not some plastic statue or first-place ribbon long abandoned in a cardboard box until it makes its way to the trash when the wife decides it’s time to declutter, but an imperishable crown. The prize is worth the effort. The prize is worth the race, and knowing this, we neither run with uncertainty nor fight as one who beats the air.

The way we master our focus is by mastering ourselves, disciplining our thoughts, our actions, and our bodies, bringing them under subjection, doing all things through the prism of the indescribable worth of knowing God and walking with Him, assigning the appropriate value to prayer, fasting, reading the Word, and spending time in His presence. We strive and struggle, sacrifice and bleed for things that will one day be but ashes blowing in the wind, but lest we forget, he who does the will of God abides forever.

While you have breath, you can. You can make Him your purpose, your joy, your peace, and your refuge. You can make Him Lord of your heart, captain of your life, and master of your soul. While you have breath, you can commit to running the race not as one who has nothing better to do on a given day, but as one whose singular desire is to obtain the prize.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Job CCLXXVI

 Job 28:1-7, “Surely there is a mine for silver, and a place where gold is refined. Iron is taken from the earth, and copper is smelted from ore. Man puts an end to darkness, and searches every recess for ore in the darkness and shadow of death. He breaks open a shaft away from people; in places forgotten by feet they hang far away from men; they swing to and fro. As for the earth, from it comes bread, but underneath it is turned up as by fire; its stones are the source of sapphires, and it contains gold dust. That path no bird knows, nor has the falcon’s eye seen it.”

And thus begins what has been aptly described as Job’s discourse on wisdom. The more Job speaks, the more we understand the depth of his wisdom. When factoring in that he lived somewhere between the great flood and the time of Moses, when wisdom would have been acquired independently, through diligent dedication, without the use of the tools we take for granted today, or even a public library he could pop into regularly, we come to understand that his wisdom was not his own but something derived from God.

Have you ever had one of those moments of clarity when you were certain that you knew something but had no idea where you’d learned it from? The world calls it intuition, or a sixth sense, but the children of God call it inspiration, or divine revelation. While intuition fails men miserably and at the worst possible moments, because it originates in man, divine inspiration or revelation is consistently true because of the source from which it proceeds.

There are a multitude of examples within the Word of God, especially when the prophetic was involved, of those tasked with writing what they had seen or heard having no way of knowing or understanding what they were seeing, yet faithfully recording it nonetheless. What they were shown in no way matched the reality they were living. If they’d attempted to interpret what they saw through the prism of human reason, it would have made no sense.

John the Revelator recorded hearing of a two-hundred-million army of horsemen during a time when the entire world’s population hovered around three hundred million. There was no way he could wrap his mind around that number. Wi-Fi wasn’t what it is today, and the Isle of Patmos likely didn’t have great cell service. I jest, of course, but for anyone to read the Bible while acknowledging the historical context of the time of its writing, and not see divine inspiration in passage after passage, is no less than willful ignorance. It’s not that they can’t see it; they don’t want to see it.

What would a man living in the desert know about mining for silver or refining gold? What would he know about smelting copper from ore, or that stones are the source of sapphires? If the discussion had revolved around shearing sheep or herding oxen, then it wouldn’t stand out. Such things were, after all, in Job’s wheelhouse. He’d had seven thousand sheep at one point, as well as five hundred yoke of oxen, so he knew a bit about these things. But smelting, refining, and mining for precious metals? There wasn’t much of that going on in the desert, and there still isn’t.

This wasn’t a session of fun facts with Job. He hadn’t dedicated his life to learning little-known particulars about niche careers, nor does the Word tell us that he was an amateur rock hound, or an aspiring gemologist.

Every insight, word of wisdom, or truth he spoke that would have been unknowable to him at the time stemmed from his relationship with God. His was a life lived not in pursuit of a hobby, or a greater understanding of how stones become sapphires, but in knowing the One who created all that is seen and unseen. God is the source of true wisdom. He is the source of true knowledge.

Some of the dumbest people nowadays seem to have the most degrees. Are you telling me you went to college for twenty years and you can’t tell the difference between a man and a woman? You can’t say with clarity, conviction, and directness what makes each unique in their own right, or feign ignorance when it comes to something as obvious as the biological impossibility of a man birthing a baby? But congratulations, you have a piece of paper hanging on your wall that declares to the world that you’re smart!

What’s worse is that some of these individuals demand that we defer to them and their way of thinking simply because they have that piece of paper. Well, you see, if you insist men can’t be women and are biologically incapable of getting pregnant, you’re just ignorant. Am I though?

Have you ever seen a flying hippopotamus?

No, I haven’t, but I have a degree, and I believe they exist, so you must validate my delusion and believe likewise.

But they don’t exist; that’s the whole point.

That you know of.

That anyone knows of! Never once has there ever been a flying hippopotamus, and no matter how many want to believe it or insist that they exist, the reality is that they don’t and never will!

Job wasn’t spouting off inanities just to make himself seem wise. He was speaking verifiable, demonstrable, timeless truths he had no way of knowing save for inspiration from God. He wasn’t beating his chest demanding that all look upon him and his brilliance; he was a man humbled beyond what we can fully grasp, yet trusted in the wisdom of the God he served and did not keep from speaking the things that flowed from that relationship.

Whether men nowadays are too proud to listen to the voice of the Lord, or too busy to hear it, whether they think they know better, or are unwilling to humble themselves and submit to His wisdom, there is a glut of supposed super spiritual voices clamoring for your attention who are nothing more than silly children opining on things they know nothing about professing to be wise yet having become fools.

Men will move mountains and dam up rivers, search every recess for ore in the darkness and shadow of death, while ignoring, avoiding, and dismissing the greatest treasure that is within reach of their fingertips day in and day out. Job’s true wisdom lay not in understanding that surely there was a mine for silver, or a place where gold was refined, but in acknowledging that God is more precious than gold, silver, sapphires, or copper. God is not the map to treasure; He is the treasure.  

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

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.