Prophecy III

 Few prophecies of old came to pass while the prophets tasked with delivering them were alive to see them fulfilled. They did not fret or rub their hands together, wondering if they’d misheard, or consider their reputation when the graying hairs grew in number, and the message they were told to deliver did not come to pass, because they knew who they were, they knew God had spoken, and understood that God would bring it to pass in His time.

It wasn’t about them, their reputation, their standing, their status, but that they faithfully delivered the message. It took almost seven hundred years for Isaiah’s prophecy regarding the birth of Jesus to come to pass. It took far longer for the first recorded prophecy in Genesis 3, coincidentally also about Christ and His ultimate victory on the cross, to be fulfilled.

Genesis 3:15, “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”

It’s not about the man or woman tasked with delivering a prophecy. It’s never been about the man or woman. It will never be about the man or woman, and anyone who attempts to make it about themselves is not following the examples of those who came before them.

I keep coming back to this point because it’s important: prophecy is not a means of elevating one’s status! Prophecy is not a means of growing one’s net worth! What’s worse is that some take their personal opinions and label them as prophecy just to give more weight to their musings. Such individuals have no fear of the Lord, for speaking when the Lord has not spoken, and going when the Lord has not sent, does nothing less than incur the wrath of the Almighty.

The quickest way to determine whether a prophecy was from God or someone’s belly is to use the two-tiered Biblical litmus tests of whether it comes to pass, and whether the prophecy itself is drawing you closer to the one true God, or toward the embrace of other gods.

Deuteronomy 18 is the benchmark Bible passage, the one most often used and not to be dismissed. However, there are caveats to this passage that we must consider and take into account, such as whether there was a specific timeline attached to the prophecy.

If there was, then your task is simple enough. A self-titled prophet said such and such a thing will happen on this date, or by this date; it didn’t happen; therefore, it was a false prophecy spoken by a false prophet.

Deuteronomy 18:20-22, “But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in My name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die. And if you say in your heart, “how shall we know the word which the Lord has not spoken?” – when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing does not happen or come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of him.”

By this plumb line, anyone who has ever set a date, insisting the Lord showed it to them, and that on this date the Lord would return, is a false prophet. They may be affable, you may like them, they may be your best friend, or they may have done you some kindness, but that does not erase the fact that they spoke something with specificity that did not come to pass within the allotted time they insisted it would occur. That doesn't change the fact that they spoke presumptuously; as such, they have no claim to the title of prophet, and you should not be afraid of him. Do not give them power over you, do not give them authority over you, do not defer to their counsel, because they are not true prophets!

That’s the easy test: straightforward, clean, clear, and absent ambiguity. But what happens when someone whose word came to pass, who showed some sort of sign or wonder, insists that there is more than one path, more than one god that man can serve and still be pleasing in the sight of the Lord? Are we to believe false doctrine just because someone is showing signs and wonders? Are we to disregard Scripture and embrace false gods just because someone prophesied something and it came to pass? Does a sign, wonder, dream, or prophecy that comes to pass override the established truth that Jesus is the only way, the only truth, and the only life?

Deuteronomy 13:1-5, “If there arises among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams, and he gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder comes to pass, of which he spoke to you, saying, ‘Let us go after other gods’ – which you have not known – ‘and let us serve them,’ you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams, for the Lord your God is testing you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. You shall walk after the Lord your God and fear Him, and keep His commandments and obey His voice; you shall serve Him and hold fast to Him. But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has spoken in order to turn you away from the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of bondage, to entice you from the way in which the Lord your God commanded you to walk. So you shall put away the evil from your midst.”

To be clear, the prophet that prophesied something and did not come to pass, the one who spoke presumptuously, you should not fear. You disregard them because they have proven themselves to be false prophets. However, the one who showed signs and gave wonders, and what they said came to pass, yet attempted to lead the people of God astray, saying they should go after other gods and serve them, should be put to death.

This is not a distinction without a difference, and many conflate the two passages, insisting that those who prophesy a thing and it does not come to pass were to be put to death. That’s not what the text says. If they spoke presumptuously and what they said did not come to pass, they should no longer be acknowledged as prophets or vessels of God; they should not be feared or believed when they insist they walk in the office they claim.

It’s those who, having given accurate words, shown signs and wonders, and attempted to turn the hearts of God’s people away from Him, that God declared should be put to death. Just because it sparkles, it doesn’t mean it’s gold.

For a prophecy to pass the Biblical litmus test, the one delivering it must show the evident fruit of a good tree and deliver an accurate word that comes to pass within the allotted time. Their doctrine must align with Scripture, and their purpose must be to stir men to repentance and a life of obedience not to themselves, but to God.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Prophecy II

 If we are to dispel the confusion around prophecy, the first step is to properly define what it is and where it originates. Prophecy is not a gut feeling. It is not an emotional response to a current situation, a guess, or a supposition, nor is it the logical deduction of a perceived outcome given a specific set of circumstances. Prophecy is not intuition. Prophecy does not originate with the individual, nor is it something they can induce, accelerate, or manufacture.

The true definition of prophecy is this: a statement or a message of divine origin that predicts the future, or proclaims a divine or supernatural will. It is not a feeling, nor is it tethered to emotion, but a message from God, delivered via a vessel of His choosing, to an individual, a body, a community, or a nation.

God does not speak in generalities. When a message is from God and is delivered as it ought to be, there is no guessing as to what God means or who it was intended for. The message is direct and clear, whether in its warning, correction, direction, or portent of some future event.

Both divine inspiration and divine revelation fall under the umbrella of the prophetic. Neither is meant to elevate the individual, nor is a prophetic calling a means of discovering a side hustle or a source of gain.

As a counterfeit to prophecy, the devil has his own version of it, commonly called divination. It is not God-breathed, God-inspired, nor does it originate from Him, and much of what passes for prophecy today, even within the church, is nothing less than the practice of divination.

I grew up in a country known for fortune tellers, palm readers, gypsies in brightly colored skirts eager to tell you your future for a few shekels, and though they try to differentiate themselves from evil by saying they were white witches, or something of the sort, the source of their power was not of the light but of the dark.

Tragically, some of these individuals had more power than those claiming to be prophets today, and could perform the parlor tricks with greater flair. They didn’t need ear pieces to tell you your mother’s name, or dog’s name, or your long-dead grandmother’s name, and their intuition was honed to razor sharpness.

If guessing someone’s zip code, or home address, makes them a prophet, then all the gypsy caravans roaming Eastern Europe have their own dedicated prophet or prophetess.

I had one experience with a gypsy woman when I was young and didn’t know any better, that I remember to this day. I was around seven at the time. We lived in a village, rural enough that we didn’t get much traffic, and one day, as I was playing in the yard, I heard a clatter coming down the unpaved road in front of our house. Being the curious sort since early youth, I stood on the bench beside our fence and peered over, only to see a caravan passing by. Three carts, heavily laden with pots, pans, and other sundries they sold as they went from place to place, and a handful of gypsies, the women of the group dressed in bright flowing skirts, with gold coins braided in their hair.

I didn’t wave or anything of the sort; I just watched as they passed, until a woman broke off from the pack and came to the fence, smiling and waving at me. I waved back, said hello, and after returning the greeting, she said, “I’ll read your future for a cup of water.”

Our well, still there the last time I drove through my home village a couple of years ago, was next to the fence, so I didn’t see the harm in giving her a cup of water. I pulled a fresh bucket, took a tin cup hanging on a nail at the base of the well, and handed it to her.

She drank it in one long pull, then said, “Give me your palm.” I extended my hand; she took it, looked down, then recoiled and said, “You’re one of them; you’re one of them. I can’t do it; you’re one of them.”

She let go of my hand, turned and rushed back to the caravan without another word or a sideways glance. What’s the point of this story? Simply that the darkness is aware of the presence of light, just as light is aware of the presence of darkness. Just because there is a supernatural element to something, it does not make it divine, nor does it ensure that it originates from God. Assume nothing. Test everything.

Yes, you may be called a wet blanket; others may demand you not question the man because the size of his ministry validates his calling, but fruit is fruit, and you can’t fake that, so no matter how well-known, how big, how much they might call themselves a prophet or a prophetess, take the time to see whether what they say is in harmony with the Word of God.   

God chooses when He speaks, He chooses whom He speaks to, and via whom the message is delivered, so thinking that anyone has the market cornered on prophecy and can guarantee a personal word from the Lord in exchange for legal tender is fallacious, wrong, and inconceivable.

You cannot monetize a gift that isn’t yours to do with as you will! That should be obvious, but given the current insanity plaguing the household of faith, it needs reiteration. If you’re a roofer and you learned how to put on a roof, that’s a skill you learned, and you are more than welcome to earn your daily bread from it. Prophecy is not a skill. It is not something you can learn. It is not something that another can teach you how to do, or impart upon you as a signing bonus.

God chooses the vessel; He chooses how often He uses the vessel, He chooses the extent to which He will use that vessel, and the vessel’s only contribution is that they remain faithful, walking in righteousness, and delivering the message they’ve been given verbatim, without taking away or adding anything to it.

It is not man’s job to guess what God was trying to say or to interpret the message they were tasked with delivering. I’ve seen more than my fair share of individuals having to walk back suppositions they made based on a word that was given because, rather than deliver the message and be done with it, they attempted to draw their own conclusions, whether regarding timeline, the means by which God would fulfill the word, or whether they, themselves, would end up playing an integral part in the fulfillment thereof.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Prophecy I

 Men presume; God declares. Men assume; God proclaims. Generations come and go, forgotten to time; God abides and remains the same yesterday, today, and forevermore. Men insist upon a thing, hoping God bends to their will, or think to themselves that if they are loud enough, belligerent enough, insistent enough, they will somehow convince Him to see it the way they perceive it.

Few topics today are more divisive than that of prophecy. From those who have a nuanced take on it, to those who insist it’s no longer for today, to those who believe everything they do, from brushing their teeth to what deodorant they wear, is prophetic, there is no end to opinions, often at odds with each other, and the arguments on every side oftentimes get heated and straddle the line between discourse, reasoning together, and all-out war.

In the heat of the moment, few have the wherewithal and presence of mind to take a pause and go to the Word of God to see what it has to say, because that would mean giving up their position, or acknowledging that they may have gotten it wrong, not because of diligent study of Scripture, but because they believed something someone once said and took it as gospel truth.

Rather than being one body united in purpose, the household of faith has become tribal, carving itself into ever smaller pieces, warring against itself, divided and fractured, staking its position and making certain everyone knows where it stands.

Far too many define themselves by the position they take on a given topic rather than by serving and following Christ, being saved and sanctified, and declaring Jesus Lord and Savior. Their identity is not Christ, but some tertiary issue they’ve chosen as the hill to die on, and wear it as a badge of honor, believing it makes them spiritually superior.

Those who profit from such division are eager to foment it, positioning themselves as intermediaries between God and man, and feeling entitled to the praise and glory rightly due God. Those with no interest other than humbly walking with Jesus, and pointing the way to Him, see the danger a divided body poses, understand that a divided house cannot stand, and that due to the infighting the entire body makes for easier prey.

We elevate men to the point that we deem them equal in authority to Scripture, then wonder why there is so much confusion, division, and no clear path forward toward the end goal of being a soldier of the faith, fully equipped and ready for every good work.  

To take a hard line and insist that God will not, cannot, or must not do something when God Himself did not declare it as such is to speak on behalf of God, assume that you know His thoughts more clearly than He knows His own, and demand that He fall in line with your way of thinking rather than submit to His.

To insist that God can no longer do something He has done since He first spoke to Adam in the garden of Eden is to appropriate His authority and place myself above it as the final arbiter of what He is allowed to do. In essence, it is saying I do not permit God to do as He wills, but demand that He submit to my musings on the matter and act according to my dictates.

If an earthly king with power limited to his kingdom were to declare a thing, and one of his subjects were to request an audience, then insist that the king cannot do as he purposed because the subject deems it so, how do you think the king would react? How much more when the King in question is limitless in His power and authority, when His will is sovereign, and He does as He wills?

No man living or dead, of this age or past ages, has ever had the authority to place limitations on God, or insist He can no longer do something just because they have declared it so. Hubris is a powerful drug, but it is also dangerous when we convince ourselves that we can dictate terms to the Almighty, and that He must abide by what we have declared for no other reason than that we have declared it.

What we must ultimately determine isn’t what men have to say about prophecy, or the prophetic in general, but what God has to say about it. How we do this is simple enough: first, we lay aside all presuppositions, preconceived notions, the things we’ve heard others say regarding the topic, and turn to the Word of God itself, and allow it to be a lamp unto our feet, to guide our way to wisdom and understanding, wherever that may lead.

We all have biases, one way or another, but if we are to rightly divide the Word, we must resolve that, if Scripture challenges them, we will humble ourselves before the Lord and submit to its authority.

If we are unwilling to bend, if our minds are already made up and we will disregard Scripture as a whole in favor of our interpretation of one verse taken out of context, around which we form an entire doctrine, then there is no point in proceeding beyond this juncture. We are all held to account for the things we know, and once we know them, we can no longer plead ignorance of the matter.  

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Introduction

 This is less a book I wanted to write than a book that needed to be written. I’ve waited patiently for someone else to take up the mantle, to put pen to paper and expound on these most controversial of topics, hoping someone would. It’s not because I don’t feel up to the task. My English is passable, I enjoy research, and I’ve been around prophecy and intimately aware of the prophetic since before I could read or write.

In hindsight, my reasoning is selfish: I was cognizant of the slings and arrows such a deep dive into prophecy, prophets, modern-day carneys, and everything in between would elicit, and my life has been such that I’ve had my fair share already, have the scars and bruises to show for it, and if I could avoid it and let another carry the burden, I would gladly do so.

Full disclosure, cards on the table, I believe in the prophetic. I believe God still engages with His people, communicates to His people, warns His people, chastens His people, and operates among His people supernaturally, as He always has; I believe He speaks to His own, and I believe He chooses vessels through which He does so.

Believing something, however, is not enough. A multitude of people believe a multitude of conflicting, contradictory things, and they can’t all be right, so the mission we will be undertaking during the time we have together is not to highlight what I personally believe and insist that by the sheer fact that I believe it, it must be thus, but to ensure that there is Biblical confirmation to support it. In layman’s terms, if what I believe and what the Bible says I must believe conflict, then the Bible has final authority on the matter.

The Bible provides no foundation for the idea that, at some point in human history, God chose to go radio silent. Ever since Adam and Eve walked in the garden, God has communicated with His creation, has been fully engaged, and is not, as some insist, an absentee landlord.   

What I do not believe is that God establishes new doctrine through the prophetic, since the canon of Scripture has been established, and we have all we need for a full, vibrant, complete, and victorious spiritual life. This is doubly true when someone claiming to be sent of the Lord speaks things contrary to what the Word of the Lord has already established, causing confusion, division, and turmoil within the household of faith.

Prophecy cannot offer you liberties otherwise not specifically granted in Scripture, nor can it place upon you burdens, whether practices, rituals, or ceremonies not contained therein.

After considerable deliberation, this study will be divided into three parts: First, what prophecy is, what it isn’t, its purpose, and its origins. The second part will focus on prophets, their roles, their authority, and how they operated in the time before the outpouring of the Holy Spirit versus how the gift of prophecy operates today. The third part will focus on the jesters and fools of our day, men and women who go without being sent and prophesy in the name of a Lord they’ve never known.

The rampant abuse of prophecy today is undeniable. Equally undeniable is that it is neither accidental nor coincidental. It is one of the telltale signs of the last days, as obvious and certain as the wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes in various places, pestilences, and general turning away from the truth we were warned would be evident. We were warned that such individuals would rise up and deceive many, but where the false exists, so must true prophecy; hence the need for discernment and the application of Scriptural litmus tests in order to separate one from the other.    

Anecdotal evidence and personal experience aside, this study will be tethered to Scripture, for we are bound by the Word in all things. Is prophecy still relevant? Is it still for today? What does the Bible have to say about it? These are the questions we will tackle and flesh out Biblically, not through the prism of a denomination or personal opinion, but via Scripture itself. Because, in the end, it’s the only opinion that matters.

This study is bound to ruffle some feathers on both sides of the aisle, whether among continuationists and cessationists, but that can’t be helped. As long as the Word is our plumb line, we must abide by what it says, even if it contradicts previously held opinions we believed to be true.     

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Housekeeping

 Every journey has a beginning and an end. Going through the book of Job and gleaning the wisdom therein has been quite the journey, taking longer than I thought it would, but necessarily so; yet here we are, at the end of the road, ready to endeavor upon a new journey shortly.

I will be taking a few days to recharge, refocus, and get Job out of my system, then on to the new project we go, which is loosely titled “Prophecy, Prophets, Jesters and Fools: The good, the bad, and the ridiculous of modern-day prophecy!”

If you've never done a deep dive into a topic, or a book of the Bible, you may not understand the need for a few days of quiet, but it’s like having a friend stay with you for close to two years, then suddenly packing up and moving away. You feel the separation, you feel the absence, and to tackle this next topic well, I need a few breaths between projects. That’s how I process, and ever since I started writing, it's been the case with each new journey.

To those who stuck with our study of Job to the end, thank you. I hope and pray you got something out of it, that you gained some insight or understanding, whether regarding the duty of man, the nature of God, or the reality that none is spared their valleys, no matter how righteous.

See you soon.   

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job CCCLVIII

 God doesn’t deal in hypotheticals. He’s not some sleazy investment guru on the internet who has to preface his pitch by saying he is not giving you investment advice, wink, wink, but all that he’s about to say is for entertainment and educational purposes. God doesn’t make empty promises; he doesn’t inflate His numbers; He doesn’t promise you the moon and the stars only to leave you with an empty wallet, wallowing in bitterness, wondering to yourself how you could have ponied up a whole hundred dollars for a course that promised to make you a millionaire only to be told you’re not getting a refund because you didn’t follow all the steps and didn’t have the initial half million seed money to grow your wealth.

No, I didn’t fall for it, but I know people who have. I grew up around hustlers, and I understand that if something is too good to be true, it likely is, so anytime someone tries to charge me in order to impart their wisdom, I shut down and walk away without giving it a second thought.

Unlike men, God means what He says, does as He promises, and whenever we take a step of faith and trust Him, He never fails. Oftentimes it begins with one small act of faith, something that your logical mind insists is wasted effort, but once you commit and follow through and do as the Word of God prescribes, you see the promise fulfilled in real time and in ways you could have never foreseen. 

It starts with one. Whatever it is you endeavor to do, it always starts with one. One choice to walk past the donuts and not pick up a dozen out of habit, one choice to walk around your block rather than sit in front of the television. One conscious decision to lay aside the troubles of this present life and commune with God. One step, one decision, one moment of realization that the earth and everything in it is passing away, so putting our trust in anything in it is an exercise in futility at best.

Of all the things that had been restored to Job, his fellowship with God was the most prized thing of all. This is not a guess or an assumption, but a conclusion tethered to his own words when he declared that God’s absence, the absence of His presence, His voice, and His guiding hand, was what vexed him beyond any of his physical or emotional torments.

From his early years, Job had anchored his hope, trust, and faith in God, not in his possessions, not in what he had amassed, not even in his wife and children. The source of his utmost joy was communion with God, being in His presence, and knowing that He was there. It was when he cried out and God was silent that Job felt truly lost, and even then he would not abandon his faith in God.

If you committed to serve, then serve. If you committed to obey, then obey. If you committed to follow, then follow. Not only when the wind is at your back and the sky before you is clear, not only when the way forward is smooth, and there are no valleys before you, but in every circumstance, in every situation, even in the trials and the setbacks, keep your eyes fixed before you, and keep going, because by its very definition, the testing of your faith is no light, easy thing.

If we saw the end from the beginning as God does, there would be no need for faith. If we understood all the mysteries of the universe and could process all wisdom and knowledge fully and completely, there would be no warning in the Word to lean not on our own understanding.

If one such as Paul concluded that for now we see through a glass, darkly, and know in part, then odds are you and I are in the same boat, and boasting about seeing everything clearly is an empty boast meant to stroke our ego and inflate our pride.

There was much Job didn’t know as he went through his trials, but the handful of things he did know were enough to carry him, strengthen him, and give him the ability to endure. What Job knew mattered more than what he didn’t know. He didn’t know why he was suffering the way he was, why everything in his life had been turned to ash, why his body had betrayed him and was nothing more than a skin suit covered in boils, or why God was being silent. He would have liked to know, had even cried to the heavens for clarification, but no clarification came.

What mattered, however, was what he knew. He knew God was real. He knew God was sovereign. He knew God was omnipotent. He knew God was worthy of worship whether in the valley or on the mountaintop. He knew God was just. He knew God was loving. He knew that though he did not feel His presence in the moment, God was nevertheless omnipresent. Most of all, having spent his life serving Him, Job knew God. Not an idea of Him, not what he’d heard others say about Him, but personally and intimately.

Do you know God? The one true God? The God of the Bible, and not some fabrication or approximation of what others think God is, or how they believe He should be, but as He reveals Himself in His word to those who are diligent to search it out and discover the beauty of all that He is?

If you do, then press on, press in, follow and obey, for He will lead you into all truth, to green pastures, and still waters. If you don’t know Him, while you still have breath, you have the opportunity to do so, not on your terms, but on His terms. Not for your glory, but for His glory. Not for your purpose, but for His purpose. Truly knowing God matters more than anything else in this life. It is the difference between life and death, light and darkness, eternity in His presence, or being cast into the outer darkness, far from Him. Choose wisely!

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Job CCCLVII

 I’m old enough to remember life before GPS and turn-by-turn instructions with real-time satellite imaging of congestion, traffic jams, and accidents. Having the world in the palm of your hand is convenient, to be sure, as is estimating your time of arrival within a five-minute window, but convenience comes at a cost, and one of the things we’ve lost along the way is the sense of adventure inherent in guessing which way you should turn, what highway you should take, and how exactly you ended up on the Polish border when you were expecting to cross into Austria.

I traveled a lot when I was younger, put on enough miles to rival an over-the-road, long-haul truck driver, and have enough stories to last me a lifetime. If the journey was more than a ten-hour drive, whenever the individual you were supposed to visit asked when you thought you were arriving, your best estimate was Tuesday rather than before six pm, but not after seven.

One of the multitude of graces we take for granted today, when we consider the time Job lived in, is that we have turn-by-turn instructions, a roadmap laid out in the Word, that all we need do is adhere to in order to reach our destination. Even so, none of us can say with any degree of certainty when we will reach it.

Job thought he was days away from ending his journey, and given his condition, that was a reasonable assumption; yet he lived another hundred and forty years beyond what he thought would surely be his end. There is an end point for all of us. Whether in a year, ten, or fifty, we will all, at one point, shake off this mortal coil, see a sunset for the last time, hug our loved ones for the last time, enjoy fellowship for the last time, then eternity.

Some of us get so caught up with wondering when our exit is coming up that we fail to cherish the journey. We death-grip the steering wheel and become obsessed with when the off-ramp will be, living in a constant state of stress regarding something we have no control over. God’s got it. He always has. Follow the instructions, and enjoy the ride.

Yes, sometimes the road may get bumpy, at other times so winding that your stomach might start to protest, but as long as you’re headed in the right direction, toward God and not away from Him, keep going. My duty is not to entertain the thoughts of when it all might end, but to ensure that when it does, I’ve finished well.

The destination is the destination. There is no place between now and then that is a viable option to pitch our tents and proceed no further. Nor is turning back to revisit the past something healthy for our spiritual man. We press ever onward, not looking back, not being distracted by shiny things off in the distance, but faithfully following after the One who promised he was going to prepare a place for us.

God knows the plans He has for you. For most of us, He does not disclose those plans, so trying to gauge what we can accomplish in five years, ten years, or even five days is foolhardy at best. This moment is all we have, and our duty before God is to redeem this moment for His glory and honor.

Some who think they have decades left will never see another moon cycle, while others who believe that death is knocking at their door and will soon kick it in will live for years still. When is God’s territory, and it is within His purview to determine such things. When we try to control things we have no way of controlling while simultaneously ignoring and putting off the things we have agency over, things we can control and do, we are wasting the most precious resource we’ve been given, which is time.

You have agency over whether you read your Bible today or not. You have agency over whether you spend time in prayer today or not. You have agency over whether you buy a hot meal for someone who is hungry today or not. These are things that you and I can control. When you close your eyes for the last time is not something you can control, so why fret about it?

We all want to move mountains, but it begins with the first pebble. It begins with the first shovelful of dirt, the first wheelbarrow, and given enough time, given enough consistency, that pebble will turn into a mound, which will turn into a hill, which will turn into a mountain that has been moved. It would be nice to see it happen in a breath or the blink of an eye, and sometimes, in His grace, God does just that, wherein He remedies a situation that seemed insurmountable to human intellect, but more often than not it’s a matter of degrees and forward momentum, and being diligent in the doing of the work required.

Did you spend more time today in God’s presence than you did yesterday? If the answer is yes, that is forward momentum, and it is a good thing. Have you spent more time in prayer today than yesterday, and has your prayer life grown month to month and year to year? If the answer is yes, that is forward momentum, and it is a good thing.

You know yourself well enough to know if you’re making progress, if you’re growing, maturing, and building up your faith, or spinning your wheels going from one distraction to another, grasping at straws and fanciful fables. If you can be honest enough with yourself to acknowledge the lack of progress, and take steps to rectify it, all you need do is knock, and He will open. All you need do is ask, and He will give. Desire fellowship with God and you will have it. Desire understanding, and you will glean it, not by osmosis, but by diligently studying the word of God, and seeing His truth revealed to you.

Time is running out for all of us. The gray hair, the achy joints, attest to the reality that we are getting older, and even if we’ve squandered more time than we would like to admit up until this point, today is the day it can all change, turn around, and we can double our efforts in redeeming the time and growing in God.

I can’t tell you how much time you have left; I’m not God. All I know is that as long as you draw breath, you have the ability to deepen your relationship with Him, and growing in God is never wasted time, for it pays dividends now and into eternity.      

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.