Job CCLXXXIII

 If, as God Himself clearly stated, the fear of the Lord is wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding, why are these things so sparsely, anemically, and infrequently taught in the modern-day church? We go out of our way to repackage and rebrand humanism and present it as wisdom; we twist ourselves into pretzels trying to circumvent the fear of the Lord and the need to depart from evil, while still insisting we can attain it without these two pillars. We regurgitate tropes and mantras that time has proven to be worthless and ineffective, all to avoid addressing these two biblically sound truths.

Why are the fear of the Lord and departing from evil avoided like the plague in the contemporary church? Why are we so reticent to preach the whole counsel of God, and rather choose to cherry-pick passages that do nothing to challenge us, chasten us, or correct us? There could only be one of two answers to this question: either those responsible for rightly dividing the Word do not want those under them to attain wisdom and understanding, or they do not believe God at His word. Either one is bad optics on the best of days, and rebellious disobedience on the worst.  

Job 29:1-6, “Job further continued his discourse, and said: ‘Oh, that I were as in months past, as in the days when God watched over me; when His lamp shone upon my head, and when by His light I walked through darkness; just as I was in the days of my prime, when the friendly counsel of God was over my tent; when the Almighty was yet with me, when my children were around me; when my steps were bathed with cream, and the rock poured out rivers of oil for me!”’

When the presence of God is a constant in one’s life, any deviation from it, any absence of it, even a temporary one, is like a hammer blow. It is likened to suddenly having your airflow constricted and not being able to take your next breath. Everything was normal, life was as life is, then suddenly, you exhale, and try as you might, you can’t catch your next breath.

People who don’t miss the presence of God never had it to begin with. That may sound harsh, but it is nevertheless the truth. If one wanders from the way, if one ceases to have the fear of the Lord, or no longer departs from evil but instead surrenders to it, and they do not feel God’s absence, then they never truly felt His presence. They may have had some emotional reaction to a sermon or a hymn, it may even have elicited tears, but as far as the abiding presence of God, if it was present and begins to wane, or is absent altogether, alarm bells would be going off, and the only thing on their mind would be to return to their first love, and reestablish fellowship with the Almighty.

Job knew what was missing because he’d lived with God’s presence for years on end. He did not know the reasons behind why he felt abandoned and forsaken; he just knew that things were not as they were, not because of the things he’d lost but because of the absence of His presence.

Perhaps God’s presence wasn’t absent altogether, and Job still saw glimpses of Him through the haze of his pain and loss, but what was once a raging bonfire was now mere embers, and Job remembered the fire. He remembered the warmth of it, the brightness of it, and knowing what had been and comparing it to what now was, tore at him.

Job was not vague about what was missing. The specificity with which he detailed these things only proves the depth of devotion, fellowship, and relationship Job possessed. He knew God had watched over him, but felt it no longer. He knew God’s lamp shone upon his head, and that he walked through darkness by His light, yet now, things were dim, and he was no longer sure-footed. The friendly counsel of God once over his tent was no longer present, and he felt the loss of all these things.

It wasn’t a tingle in his toes that Job was missing; it was verifiable attributes of a true relationship with the Almighty that Job no longer felt. It didn’t matter what area of his life he was referring to, Job acknowledged God in every single one. It was by His light that he walked through darkness, not by his sharpened senses, not because he’d bought the newest flashlight, not even because the ground he trod in the darkness was so well known to him that he knew where every loose stone and pebble was. His dependence was not on his own faculties to guide him through life, but on the God he served, trusting Him to light the way.

As a father, I also found it highly relatable that, of all the things he’d lost, the one thing he remembers with both sadness, fondness, and regret was the times when his children were around him. He makes no mention of the oxen, goats, camels, or earthly possessions he’d been stripped of, but he does mention his children, remembering the time when they were around him.

The world makes treasures of worthless things, of baubles and fool’s gold, while dismissing the true treasures, those things that come from the hand of God, that bring joy, fulfillment, and wholeness in ways no material things can. You can lament for those still blind to life’s true treasures if they are still of the world, but as sons and daughters of God, we should know better and use our time accordingly. It’s the things that don’t have a price tag, that aren’t exclusive to the elite, that aren’t reserved for the rich that reveal the majesty of our creator God, from the flutter of a butterfly’s wings, to the smile of a newborn babe in swaddles.

Not only was Job a blameless and upright man, but he also had his priorities in order and valued what truly mattered in this life. Most people read the book of Job and conclude that it is the quintessential prototype of how to suffer well, but it’s these small glimpses into his life that reveal there was more to him than the ability to endure hardship, and more lessons could be learned from his life than submitting to God’s sovereignty in all things. Yes, that one lesson stands head and shoulders above the rest, but we dismiss the others to our detriment.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Job CCLXXXII

 It goes without saying that none of the attributes Job ascribed to God were because Job was an autodidact, because even though he might have been, there was nowhere he could go to glean such wisdom during his time. Whether opining on God making a law for the rain, or establishing a weight for the wind, these were revelatory in nature, of divine origin, a truth breathed into Job, not of himself or his own wisdom.

It is intriguing, to say the least, that four thousand years later, what we deem scientific breakthroughs corroborate the statements made by a man living in the desert, without claiming the title of scholar or wise man, but who God Himself said feared the Lord and shunned evil. That was the extent of his education, the extent of his pedigree, yet he spoke of things so far removed from the learned men of his time that millennia had to pass for scientific discovery to catch up to him.

For the vain and the proud, those who lean on their understanding, such insights are irrelevant and readily glossed over, because were they to take the time and consider the implications of the words Job spoke without having the natural ability to know these things, it would point to the reality of God, His presence, and His wisdom.

Those who refuse to acknowledge God will find ways around having to contend with the truth that Job knew things he had no way of knowing, at a time when such wisdom was impossible to acquire via natural means.

For those willing to humble themselves and see the truth of what Job says, he answers two all-important questions that men have been asking for millennia. The first question he answers is from where does wisdom come. The second question he answers is what is wisdom.

Anyone who can’t answer these two questions will forever be likened to a blind man groping in the dark when it comes to wisdom. There is no true wisdom to be had without the presence of God in one’s life. Men can be learned, men can possess vast quantities of useless facts, they can boast of diplomas and degrees, but as far as true wisdom goes, it is only found in one place, and as Job so poetically tells us, that place is in God.

Some two thousand years later, James, the half-brother of Jesus, even goes so far as to give us step-by-step instructions as to how we can acquire this oft-sought-after but rarely found wisdom.

James 1:5, “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.”

There it is, simple and direct. If you lack wisdom, ask it of God, and He will give it to you. The reason so few find wisdom nowadays is twofold: first, they don’t know where to find it, or if they do, they’re unwilling to humble themselves enough to ask it of God, and second, they believe true wisdom to be something other than what the Word of God says it is.

If you are looking for a specific thing and there is only one place to find it, then the way forward is clear enough. I know where to find a decent burger in the town I live in. If I’m in the mood for a burger, I won’t go in search of one at the local Mexican joint, nor will I try to hassle the people at the Chinese buffet into making me one. I will go where I know I will find what I’m looking for, without wasting time trying to get it where I know it isn’t.

The Word of God is prescriptive. It tells us where to go and what to do to attain what we are seeking. Granted, one must possess enough self-awareness to know that they lack wisdom, but once that hurdle is overcome, the rest is as easy as asking God, who, as James says, will give it liberally and without reproach.

This means that God will never look down on you for asking Him for wisdom. He won’t browbeat you or shame you for lacking it, but will gladly give it to you. All you need to do is ask.

We have not, because we ask not; and sometimes, when we ask, we do so without faith, doubting that God will give us the wisdom we’re asking for. We can ask in full faith and assurance that God will give us wisdom, because He has promised to do so. We don’t need to go down rabbit trails or start playing the what-if game with ourselves. God said He would give it if we ask in faith, and that’s all there is to it.

So what is wisdom? When you ask God for wisdom, will you suddenly be able to do quantum equations in your head, or understand the intricacies of theoretical physics? Will you suddenly know all there is to know of horticulture or apiculture? Will you be able to finally solve that Rubik's Cube that’s been gathering dust in a drawer because the kids decided it would be fun to play with it, and you couldn’t figure out how to put it back the way it was? No, most, if not all, of these things can be learned through diligent study, and though they contain knowledge, they are not wisdom.

God Himself defined true wisdom. Not a preacher, a teacher, an evangelist, or some third party that thought they knew better, but God Himself. He said, “The fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding.”

Some bristle at the idea of the fear of the Lord because they do not understand it. They associate the fear of the Lord with the fear one expresses toward someone who is violent toward them, or is liable to fly off the handle at the drop of a hat and beat them senseless.

Within the context of Scripture, the best way to define the fear of the Lord is as a reverential awe, rather than the constant terror of waiting for the other shoe to drop and for violence to ensue. He is God, and I am not. He is the Creator, and I am creation. He is sovereign, supreme, and omnipotent. My having the fear of the Lord does not stem from an expectation of being pummeled into the dust by His unseen hand, but from who He is and the authority rightfully His. I am in constant, reverent awe of the God I serve, who He is, what He has done, and the lengths to which He went that I might be reconciled to Him.             

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

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.