Job CCXXXI

  Job 21:14-16, “Yet they say to God, ‘Depart from us, for we do not desire the knowledge of Your ways. Who is the Almighty, that we should serve Him? And what profit do we have if we pray to Him?’ Indeed their prosperity is not in their hand; the counsel of the wicked is far from me.”

It’s easy to fall into the snare of envying the wicked who prosper. As was the case in Job’s day, it’s easy to look upon those who want nothing to do with God, who say to God depart from us, for we do not desire the knowledge of your ways, yet they nevertheless prosper, and to conclude that it’s unfair, or that the deck is stacked against the righteous.

If wealth, riches, or prosperity were the pinnacle of what God could offer to His children, we would all be doing backflips into swimming pools filled with cash. If opulence were the best God could offer those who are His, we would all be living in it. When we shift our perspective from seeing the world through the eyes of flesh to seeing it through spiritual eyes, we come to understand that the things men boast in, the wealth they flaunt and revel in, are the leavings, the trash, the detritus, rather than God’s best.

I realize it may not feel like it, or even seem like it at times, but it is nevertheless true. What God offers His children is superior to what the wicked enjoy in every way. Yes, you can be a child of God and have wealth, but you cannot be a child of Satan and feel God’s presence, Spirit, peace, joy, and love.

The defining question is whether we want what the world offers or what God offers. Do we look upon the wicked with envy or with pity? Does the desire of our heart extend to those things exclusive to God’s children, or are we satisfied with earthly scraps and useless trinkets that do nothing to strengthen our spiritual man?

It’s both telling and revelatory that much of what calls itself the church today focuses on the things of this world as though they were the apex of what God can give to His beloved, while dismissing the things that truly matter, that hold eternal weight, and that cannot be bottled, packaged, traded, sold, or bartered for.

No matter the amount of wealth he possesses, a rich man cannot buy eternal life, spiritual gifting, or the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. It’s not as though if they offer a million and God says no, He’ll change His mind if they offer ten. You cannot put a price on intimacy with God. You cannot put a price on the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. No dollar amount will get God’s attention and make Him reconsider. These things are reserved exclusively, unequivocally, and unapologetically for His sons and daughters alone.

The mindset that if you have enough money, you can buy anything is pervasive but false. Perhaps you can buy most things, but not everything, especially when it comes to what truly matters. You can’t buy happiness, you can’t buy contentment, you can’t buy salvation, you can’t buy fulfilment, you can’t buy peace, joy, or true purpose for that matter. When you think about it, there’s a lot that money can’t buy, and some of the most miserably unhappy people I’ve ever met happened to have overflowing coffers. Between acquiring it and figuring out how to keep it, many affluent individuals find themselves in the twilight of their existence with nothing to show for the life they’ve lived but a few zeros on a screen, which is cold comfort indeed.

God is not a salesman. He is not in the business of selling His children’s inheritance for baubles or things that will eventually be burned up. There was a man who tried, early on, when the church was barely getting off the ground and could have used an injection of capital. If everything revolves around money as some would have us believe, and the only reason we give is to get more of it, then Peter should have tried to work out a deal, maybe bargain a bit, or at least see what Simon’s opening gambit was. There were, after all, widows to feed, the poor to tend to, and I’m sure the kitchen could have used an upgrade.

Acts 8:18-20, “And when Simon saw that through the laying on of the apostles’ hands the Holy Spirit was given, he offered them money, saying, ‘Give me this power also, that anyone on whom I lay hands may receive the Holy Spirit.’ But Peter said to him, ‘Your money perish with you, because you thought that the gift of God could be purchased with money! You have neither part nor portion in this matter, for your heart is not right in the sight of God.”’

It never crossed Peter’s mind to entertain the offer. His interest was not piqued; he did not ask what number Simon was thinking of, but in his brutally honest fashion, Peter shut down the possibility of Simon’s request ever being considered. We’ve seen far too many spiritual leaders compromise and prostitute themselves for the sake of clout or the promise of a hefty tithe check. We see the preferential treatment certain people get, and it’s not the poor or downtrodden, but usually someone with prominence, name recognition, and influence.

By all accounts, Simon was a man of influence in Samaria, with some being convinced that he was the great power of God. He was a sorcerer and had been astonishing the people for a long time. Why didn’t Peter consider a collaboration? Why didn’t he ride Simon’s coattails and stand on the stage hand in hand with him, smiling broadly as Simon vouched for him? He was, after all, a known commodity in Samaria, and the people would have responded more positively to Peter had he included Simon in his evangelistic outreach.

The simple answer is that light and darkness do not mix. It is a lesson many pastors, evangelists, bishops, or preachers should have taken to heart, and it would have saved them from having to wipe egg off their faces time after time.

Peter’s answer wasn’t a simple no, or I don’t think so, but he drove the point home to such an extent as to open Simon’s eyes to his sin, his need for repentance, and expose his heart as being poisoned by bitterness and bound by iniquity. There was no glad-handing to be had, no shout-outs from the pulpit, just a rebuke and a call to repentance. Radical, I know, but maybe, just maybe, we should reintroduce the call for repentance to our sermons and insist upon its need resolutely and unapologetically, no matter who’s sitting in the front row, rather than coddling them into hell.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job CCXXX

God’s purpose is what matters. More than our temporary pain, discomfort, embarrassment, humiliation, loss, or hardship, the ultimate goal of God’s purpose through all these is what we must focus on and draw strength from. What will I become once I traverse this valley? What will you be transformed into once you finish your climb? What attributes, virtues, and unquantifiable benefits will make themselves known once my faith has been tested and proven? How much greater will your faith be? How much will your trust in God deepen once He has shown His faithfulness?

There is no such thing as needless suffering when it comes to the children of God. The trials He allows in our lives are not from a position of cruelty, but rather from a place of love, correction, and the purpose of refining, strengthening, maturing, and growing our faith in Him.

The fiery furnace of affliction was never meant to be comfortable; by both definition and purpose, it cannot be. If we focus on the fire, on the affliction, on the hardship, or the heartache, we will always tend to pull back or shrink away. If, however, we focus on what the fire will produce once we’ve gone through it, we will continue planting one foot in front of the other, and walking boldly through it with the full assurance that God will make a way, and we will come out the other side the stronger for it.

Even at his lowest, Job had faith in God’s plan and purpose. He did not know what they were. There was no clear path before him, no silver lining in the storm. He could not see how they would reveal themselves, but he retained his faith in the God who had never failed him.

What do I do when the unexpected happens? Trust God. What do I do when nothing seems to be going right, and everything around me is crumbling? Trust God. What do I do when the thing I thought would be my safety net gets pulled out from under me? Trust God. That is the answer to every situation in which we are overwhelmed, or from which there seems to be no obvious escape. Trust God!

Psalm 56:3-4, “Whenever I am afraid, I will trust in You. In God (I will praise His word), In God I have put my trust; I will not fear. What can flesh do to me?”

No one expects you to be an emotionless robot, feeling nothing, plodding along, unaffected by anything, ever, no matter how difficult, no matter how protracted, or debilitating. It’s okay to cry, weep, mourn, and acknowledge pain; it makes you no less of a saint, a believer, or a Christian.

Throughout the Bible, men and women of God felt fear and acknowledged it, felt pain and acknowledged it, felt loss, disappointment, betrayal, privation and acknowledged them all, but through those moments of hurt they chose to focus on God, trusting Him implicitly, thereby concluding that as long as their trust was firmly rooted in God there was nothing to fear. There was nothing to fear, not because fear was unwarranted, but because the God they served was greater than their fear, greater than their circumstances, and greater than their trial.

God did not look down on Job or think less of him for honestly seeing himself and his situation as hopeless in the eyes of men. He didn’t rebuke Job and demand that he put on a brave face, scrub off the puss and maggots feasting on his rotting flesh, and go about his day as though nothing untoward was happening. God will never ask you to do the impossible. He asks you to trust Him to do the impossible. This is not a distinction without a difference, nor is it something arbitrary and inconsequential.

Whether I believe I can fix a problem on my own or fully trust that God can, makes all the difference in the world and affects everything from my attitude to my focus to my mood to the level of hope I possess and in whom I place that hope.

If I put my trust in myself, whenever I hit a brick wall or the path before me becomes impossible to traverse, I struggle harder, focusing more on the problem than on God, who can fix the problem. I tilt at windmills, thinking I can affect the change only God can, and when I fail repeatedly, I get more stubborn, determined to prove to myself and the rest of the world that I can do it when obviously I can’t.

If I put my trust in God, I am at peace knowing that it’s not within my ability to rectify the situation, but that it’s within His, and when He chooses to do so, all glory will be given to Him.

God or man. God or self. God or position. God or possessions. God or government. God or the socially awkward guy with the heavy accent in the white lab coat who graduated last in his class but is nevertheless a doctor. Every day, we choose whom to trust, and if you haven't noticed the pattern, God stands alone against everything and everyone we can place our trust in as human beings.

Perhaps the government might solve one problem, man another, position another still, but God can solve all of them with equal ability, competence, and aptitude.

Job’s was not a single issue needing to be remedied. There was a plethora of things that needed to be addressed, from his health to his wealth, to his family, to everything in between, and so, counting on an individual to solve one problem, even if they were able to do so, would leave all the other issues hanging over his head like the sword of Damocles. Salves and poultices may have relieved his pain momentarily, but that still left the problem of having nothing left to his name but a pile of ash. The generosity of his friends might have helped him scrape by and feed himself, but that still left his failing flesh and the loss of his children.

Only God can make all things new. Only God can restore, heal, and provide to the point that those who know of your situation will see it as a miracle. The one thing we struggle with is that God does these things His way, in His time, for His purposes, and sometimes His timing or the way He resolves an issue differs from what we imagined or hoped for.     

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Job CCXXIX

 Between the “nothing is as it seems crowd” and the “everything is exactly as it seems crowd”, there are those blessed few who understand that some things are not as they seem, some are, and some will remain a mystery no matter how much they dwell on it. From doctors who can’t explain the miraculous recovery of a terminal patient, to why your wife’s smile is broader when you do the dishes without being asked than when you bring her flowers, some things just can’t be understood, no matter how hard we try to understand them.

As far as the sudden recoveries go, the doctors who don’t view themselves as something akin to a god possessing the power of life and death will allow for the possibility of a miracle and concede that some things are beyond their understanding. As far as the reason for the wife’s broader smile, that’s a mystery unlikely to ever be solved.

Job was attempting to show his friends that not everything was black and white, that some things don’t fit neatly into one box or the other, but in order for them to concede the point, they would have to admit that they had erred, and that would mean swallowing their pride. Better to accuse an innocent man of wickedness than to admit your conclusion was in error. They were, after all, learned men, men who understood patterns and historical precedent, and that was enough for them to keep doubling down.

Recent events and disclosures prove that sometimes the most despicable among us continue to prosper for a season, even when the best they deserve for the rest of their existence is a damp, windowless dungeon with the resident rats and mice as their only company and source of sustenance. Some of the most notable names and richest men on the planet have been exposed as being monsters wearing human flesh, and if Zophar’s conclusions had been true of every wicked man, they would have been served justice decades ago.

That’s what Job was trying to point out. From the outside looking in, at least some percentage of the time, the wicked did not suffer the consequences of their actions but enjoyed lives filled with mirth and abundance.

The thing Job’s friends failed to understand is that for those walking in the Spirit, for those wholly submitted to God, there are no longer qualifiers for the things occurring in their lives. They don’t live out their days dividing the good and the bad that occurred in a given week, weighing and measuring if more good than bad took place, but receive it all as God’s plan and purpose, trusting that even what seems bad in the moment will work together for good at some point in the future.

My grandfather’s passing was hard on me. To be fair, hard doesn’t even begin to describe it. I pleaded with God, begged with Him, tried to bargain with Him, all in the hope that God would extend his days. It turned out it was his time, God took him home, he went to his reward, and for the briefest of moments, I was bitter, broken, disillusioned, and bereft.

This was the man who’d taught me how to fish, ride a bike, shoot a slingshot, a man whose faithfulness I’d witnessed my whole life, who did his duty even when the pain would have felled any other, who sacrificed everything to preach an unpopular message to an indifferent church, and for all that he would return to the earth from which he came while others whose only concern was for themselves lived on to ripe old ages.

Yes, I thought as a child, and in my defense, I was still a child, comparatively speaking. I could not see God’s plan in taking him home as anything positive, as something good, and I wrestled with God over this matter because I wanted an answer. I needed a resolution, closure, something that would make it make sense.

I was my grandfather’s interpreter. I traveled with him not because God gave me the message for America, but because he needed someone to translate his words into English and deliver them to the people in a way they could understand. I had no aspiration for ministry beyond my grandfather’s need for my being his translator. In the back of my mind, there was always a plan for after; I just never imagined the after would come so soon.

I didn’t have a clear plan for what I would do with my life after my duty to my grandfather ended, but I had an outline. I was going to go back to school, become an archeologist, and spend the rest of my days digging in the dirt in hard-to-reach places far away from the hustle and bustle of big cities, alone with God, with a chisel and a trowel. That was the dream. That was all I wanted, and it did not seem unattainable.

There’s the adage that if you want to make God laugh, all you have to do is tell Him your plans. I told God my plans, and He didn’t laugh; He just said no. I tried explaining it again, with more context and detail this time, and He still said no. Having never been one given to petulance, stomping my feet and holding my breath until God saw it my way, I offered up all the reasons why this would be the best course for my life, harkening back to the decade-plus I’d faithfully served without groaning or demands for remuneration, and once again I was denied.

Sometimes it takes more than once for God to say no before you resign yourself and submit to His will. Perhaps it’s just me. Perhaps everyone else takes having their life’s trajectory derailed and their plans turned to ash in stride, but I wasn’t as smart as all that.

When God finally revealed what He wanted me to do, it was the one thing I prayed He would never ask of me: to continue the work my grandfather had started. I’d lived it since I was twelve, and I knew the sacrifices it required, the hardships that would have to be endured, and if I’d had a choice in the matter, I would have gladly passed it off to another without a second thought.

I didn’t have a choice, though, not really. The one choice afforded to me was no choice at all, which was to disobey God, and that was something I would not, and could not do. Would I have been as content digging in the dirt instead of doing what I’m doing? Perhaps, perhaps not, but I would have been in rebellion had I chosen the path not taken, and that would have been detrimental to my spiritual man.

When God changes the plans you’ve made for yourself, it’s for a purpose. It’s not because He doesn’t want you to be happy, or fulfilled, it’s not because He doesn’t want you to live your dream, but because He has a different path in mind for you, a different calling, a different journey, a different purpose, one that you may not see in the moment as greater than your own plans, but that will be exceedingly more rewarding if you choose to pick up your cross and follow after Him.       

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job CCXXVIII

 The proud, the haughty, the hedonistic, and the self-indulgent may scoff at the idea that the true worth of a man is not in the wealth he possesses, the authority he commands, or the respect he garners from his contemporaries, but it is one of the most profound truths that one can learn early in life. It frames the entirety of your existence wherein you extend kindness to prince and pauper alike, wherein you show humility in every area of your life, and you learn to value the thing that matters above all else, which is the knowledge of God as Father, Lord, King, and Savior.

Jeremiah 9:23-24, “Thus says the Lord: ‘Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, let not the mighty man glory in his might, nor let the rich man glory in his riches; but let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord, exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth. For in these I delight,’ says the Lord.”

Any pursuit not directly beneficial to your spiritual man is wasted effort, and worse still, a waste of time that you can never get back, no matter how much you try. Any spiritual pursuit not directly focused, anchored, and centered on Jesus is likewise a waste.

If that sounds restrictive or exclusionary, it’s because it is. The supremacy of Christ is not a point of debate. He is singularly the Son of God, He singularly died on the cross for the sins of man, He singularly rose again on the third day, and He is singularly the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father but by Him.

It’s a straightforward enough statement, yet time and again the spiritual leaders of the day try to water down this all-encompassing truth, insisting that there are different paths to the same destination and that choosing which god to serve is like choosing the flavor of ice cream you prefer. It’s all ice cream in the end, just different flavors. Sure, there are some outliers like sherbet or gelato, but in a pinch, they’ll pass for ice cream, too, because the more choices you give someone, the likelier they are to become a customer.

There is no other way by which a man can be saved than through Jesus. There is only one item on that menu, and there are no specials or substitutions, nor can you bring your own bagged lunch to eat inside. Jesus is the only way.

That doesn’t sound very inclusive. What happened to the big tent mindset? It was a lie, it is a lie, and it will continue to be a lie. If the desire of your heart is to serve God, then you must do so based on His rules and not your own. Anyone who insists on playing by their own rules while claiming to serve the God of the Bible is lying to themselves and the world at large.

No, eternity is not a game, but the analogy applies because of the implicit and explicit rules. If you’re playing basketball and someone starts body slamming his opponents, taking the ball and walking it to the net, they’re no longer playing basketball because they are not adhering to the pre-established rules.

If you want to enter heaven, there is only one door, and you must walk through it to enter therein. The door is Jesus, for only He can save, transform, and sanctify. Only He can reconcile man to God, and anyone who hints at another avenue, or the possibility that there is another way, is lying to your face.

Job 21:9-13, “Their houses are safe from fear, neither is the rod of God upon them. Their bull breeds without failure; their cow calves without miscarriage. They send forth their little ones like a flock, and their children dance. They sing to the tambourine and harp, and rejoice to the sound of the flute. They spend their days in wealth, and in a moment go down to the grave.”

While Zophar outlined what the lot of the wicked was, insinuating that Job was wicked because he was checking off all the boxes, Job looked at the world from a different angle, one that shattered Zophar’s thesis.

Without absolute intellectual honesty, we tend to see only what we want to see. Zophar saw what he wanted to see. He saw the ultimate judgment of the wicked, but failed to acknowledge that wicked men still prospered until they didn’t.

Job’s approach was more nuanced, more balanced, because given his former status, he’d likely run across such men with regularity. In Job’s eyes, it seemed as though the wicked had not a care in the world. The wicked prospered, became mighty in power, lived and grew old, they spent their days in wealth, and when the time came for them to shuffle off this mortal coil, they did so quickly and without a protracted season of pain and torment.

It’s far easier to wrap our minds around the prospering of the wicked than it is the trials of the righteous, because, while on the one hand God makes the sun rise on the evil and on the good alike, and sends rain on the just and the unjust, the trials and tribulations of the righteous seem unfair to both our sensibilities and our intellect.

We’ve adopted the world’s mindset that good things happen to good people, bad things happen to bad people, and when something bad happens to a good person, we can’t understand it. Because our understanding is limited, because our thoughts and God’s thoughts are oceans apart, and our purpose and His purpose differ, we tend to become modern-day Zophars, concluding there must be some hidden wickedness that precipitated their trial.

It’s the most straightforward conclusion to reach, requiring no thought, nuance, or follow-up questions. I have a few questions, though. Who determines that the thing is bad, man or God? Who determines that a man is good? Who can rightly say they see the end from the beginning as God does, and conclude that God is being unjust or unfair, given that their view is limited to the present and unable to see into tomorrow?

Whatever trial you may be going through, trust God. Whatever hardship you may be enduring, trust God. He sees what you cannot, He knows what you do not, and His word tells us that all things work together for good to those who love Him, and are called according to His purpose.       

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job CCXXVII

 People approach life from different angles, via different avenues, but they all lead to the same core, the same center, regardless of where they start. For some, the path is straight; for others, it's meandering. Some get to it quickly, while others struggle against its pull, intuiting that giving in is an empty, meaningless life, but in the end, save for divine intervention and the revelation of a new path heretofore unseen, everyone finds themselves in the same spot. It’s the center of the maze, the reason for lies, deceit, heartlessness, greed, selfishness, malice, and all forms of evil.  

Well? What is it? I’m sure you’ve guessed it by now, but in case you haven’t, that center is the self. Whether it’s self-reliance, self-esteem, self-worth, self-motivation, self-promotion, or selfishness, it all funnels to the self, gravitates toward it, and makes the self the singular priority of one’s existence.

As long as I get mine, I am unconcerned with what others are going through. As long as I have my mansion on the hill, my private jet, my chauffeured limo, and my excesses, I will compromise, obfuscate, align myself with the worst kind of evil, and not lose a minute’s sleep over it. The ends justify the means every time, even if the means require that I sell my soul, hurt people who trusted me, and betray the gospel of Christ, because I am my own god and my entire existence is in service to me.

The current state of the contemporary church, and especially its leaders, has more to do with those who ought to know better living in service to their flesh, catering to it, and prioritizing it, than with the active meddling of the devil. It’s not that he wouldn’t have meddled if he needed to, but why bother when the televangelists, preachers, pastors, and heads of denominations were doing his work for him voluntarily and free of charge? We haven’t seen false prophets and false Christs showing great signs and wonders as yet because it’s been unnecessary.

The focus on the self, this present life, the here and now, is but the first salvo in a multi-pronged war, and it’s been more successful than the enemy could have ever dreamed. There was no need to threaten prison, persecution, or martyrdom when all it took for the church to capitulate was an offer of luxury, country clubs, gated communities, and Japanese Wagyu.

Those days are coming, be sure of it, because the Bible warns us that they will, but that will only be after the sifting, the purging, and the separation of those who serve Jesus with their hearts from those who say they serve Him with their lips. When a glut of souls pretends to serve Jesus only for the earthly benefits they’ve been told He offers, once that offer is no longer on the table, they will gravitate toward some other deity that promises them the comfort and ease of life they were promised by the faux-representatives of Christ.

It was never about fealty to Christ; it was about fealty to self and using Christ as the means by which they could achieve what their flesh wanted all along. That’s the hard part we must come to terms with: that many claiming to be His were never really His to begin with. They were never true soldiers of the cross but mercenaries offering their services to the highest bidder, no matter who that bidder happened to be. Their loyalty extended only as far as themselves, and whatever master they served was interchangeable as long as they got what they were after.

For the better part of a generation, if not longer, Christianity has been incrementally made less about Jesus and more about self, to the point that, for many, Jesus has become an afterthought. How can we be the temple of God without the presence of His Spirit indwelling in us? How can His Spirit indwell in us if we refuse to repent or resist being transformed into His likeness because we love the sin in our lives more than we love Him?

1 Corinthians 3:16-17, “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are.”  

While we are told from various pulpits that we are the pinnacle of everything, that it’s all about us, and the universe itself must bend to our will, God says crucify the flesh, crucify the self, crucify the image of you that you have in your mind’s eye, and become reliant on Me. Become dependent on me. Find your joy, your fulfilment, your purpose, and your worth in what My Son did for you on the cross, and understand that any nobility you may attain, any righteousness you may project is as filthy rags without My Son’s blood having washed and made you clean.

For some, it’s a big ask. So much so that they try to thread the needle in such a way that they’ll rely on their strength, intelligence, aptitudes, and abilities for as long as they can, and only after they see the ragged edges, the threads pulling apart, and the ground upon which they stand begin to shift do they run to God for aid. They make it all about themselves until it’s no longer tenable, and only then do they grudgingly acknowledge their own weakness, impotence, and frailty.

Even when Job was on top of the world, he was still reliant on God. Even when he had everything he’d ever want or need, he served God from a pure heart and a genuine desire to fellowship with Him and not because he wanted more stuff or felt as though he had to fake his faithfulness in order to retain the things he had. How can I be sure of this? Because God knows the heart of man, and He declared it to be so. You can fake it until you make it in the eyes of the world, but God is not so gullible. You can’t get one over on Him. He knows the intent behind all we do, and those who serve Him out of a genuine desire for relationship and fellowship with Him will know His presence and hear His voice.  

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job CCXXVI

 Job 21:4-8, “As for me, is my complaint against man? And if it were, why should I not be impatient? Look at me and be astonished; put your hand over your mouth. Even when I remember I am terrified, and trembling takes hold of my flesh. Why do the wicked live and become old, yes, become mighty in power? Their descendants are established with them in their sight, and their offspring before their eyes.”

You’re attacking me, and I’m beseeching, entreating, pleading with, and crying out to God. The two are not the same. You accuse me of things I haven’t done, and I plead my innocence. The two are not the same. You conspire to shake my faith, to make me give up, to curse God and die, and conclude that I am deserving of my lot. I cry out to God, asking that He reveal my error to me if there is error, that He reveal my wickedness to me if there is wickedness, and I will repent of it. The two are not the same.

Job didn’t threaten to sue for defamation; he didn’t pull out a stack of NDAs and insist that his friends sign them; he didn’t try to create a straw man or point to others in similar situations, thereby justifying his own actions. He was an innocent man who pleaded with God in the presence of his friends, and not with his friends in the presence of God.

If there was any doubt, Job made it clear: as for me, is my complaint against man? Obviously not, because what could any man do to ease my suffering, or remedy my situation? What could any man do to take away the pain or inject some hope into my weary soul?

Job knew that if there was any hope, it was found in God. His friends had become burdensome, cumbersome, a noisy nuisance that he felt obliged to answer, but as far as hoping they had some means of rectifying his situation, there was none to be found.

Few in the history of mankind have found themselves in a situation as dire as Job’s. I can’t think of one offhand, but there must have been at least a handful that came close. Conversely, we’ve all had varying degrees of hardship, of seemingly impossible situations, or valleys and rocky roads that seemed to never end, and in those moments, we choose to run to God or to men.

Perhaps it’s thinking that the problem isn’t big enough to bother God with, so we will try to rectify it on our own, only to discover we’ve made it worse than we could have imagined. Perhaps it’s hoping we can prove to God that we can manage without His intervention. Maybe we’re just stubborn and stiff-necked, but whatever the reason may be that we don’t run to God first, in the end, we live to regret it.

The best man can offer, whether friends, brothers, sisters, or family, however well-meaning and well-intentioned, is what amounts to a temporary fix. God is the only one who can offer permanent solutions.

It’s the difference between discovering you have a flat tire, putting air in it, only to discover it’s flat again come the morning, and getting a new tire, without a puncture that will hold air for months if not years to come.

I’ve lived long enough to see the folly of trusting men to solve issues God could readily remedy. I’ve also seen the danger of impatience when it comes to not waiting on the Lord to do it, and striking out on one’s own, thinking we know better. Job knew enough to know that men would not have a hand in his restoration if there were any to be had. He knew that trying to appease his friends was likewise a nonstarter.

All he had left was God, and God was more than enough. This is a good reminder and a teachable moment for everyone, including myself. God is sufficient, no matter your trial or situation. He is enough. Even in your most desperate moments and your darkest season, God is all you need. Run to Him! Not after you’ve exhausted every avenue, not when there’s nothing left to cling to, but first, every time, without fail, and your faith will grow and mature with every iteration of seeing that your trust was not misplaced, and that He did not fail you.

Job’s complaint was not against man, but if it had been, he would have been within his rights to be impatient. Job knew that man cannot see as God sees, man cannot hear as God hears, and man cannot intervene as God can, and his first salvo seems a bit tongue-in-cheek.

If my words were targeted toward you, by now I would be within my rights to be impatient given that I’ve seen nothing by way of resolution, but fear not, my friends, I know the extent of your impotence and inability to affect my current lot, and so it’s not you I’m pleading with, it’s with the God whom I know can do what you cannot.

Were my hope tethered in you, I would be a man bereft, watching the ashes of my life slip through my fingers, adrift in an ocean of pain and hopelessness, with no shoreline in sight, or hope for redress.

But, even as I am, broken, shattered, and stripped of everything, including my own dignity, I cling to the One who knew me before He formed me in my mother’s womb, who counts the hairs on my head, who sees me as I am, and I will trust Him still.

Though He slay me, yet I will trust Him. Even so, I will defend my own ways before Him. If that sounds familiar, Job spoke those words some eight chapters back. His position had not shifted. He had not given up addressing God, nor had he shifted his focus from what God saw in him to what his friends thought of him. He remained consistent, knowing that how God sees us is the only thing that matters. Does God view you as a son or daughter? Does God count you as His own? If so, it matters not what the world, your family, your friends, or anyone else thinks of you. Strive to be pleasing in the sight of the Lord and not praised by the forked tongues of the world, and you will always have God on your side, no matter the situation.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job CCXXV

 Job 21:1-3, “Then Job answered and said: “Listen carefully to my speech, and let this be your consolation. Bear with me that I may speak, and after I have spoken, keep mocking.’”

Some people are talkers, others are listeners, and a handful know how to balance the two and speak when they ought, listen when they should, and do it in such a way as to make the other person feel as though they weren’t speaking to a brick wall, or listening to a monologue rather than having a dialogue.

When someone has a tendency to ramble, I let them. If they like the sound of their own voice so much, why should I be the one to yuck their yum? It happens on occasion when someone asks to interview me, and for thirty minutes or an hour, depending on the length of the program, I hear my life story read back to me, and other than thanking the individual for having me on their program, I could barely get a word in edgeways. I’m glad they did their research, or at least know how to use the interwebs well enough to pull up my bio, but if I made the time to block out an hour of my life to focus solely on having a conversation, it would be nice to actually have one.

Some of the most brilliant interviewers of our day have mastered one skill: listening. Especially when it comes to long-form interviews, it’s not the ones that like to flex their vocabulary muscles, those who want to prove how smart they are, or those that like to hear the sound of their own voice that stand out, but those that ask a simple question, and wait for the answer, allowing for the interviewee to make their point without interruption.

Once they’ve made their point, if the need arises, there are follow-up questions, requests for clarification, or the fleshing out of an idea, but for the most part, the interviewer listens.

Conversely, some of the most insufferable individuals roaming about today are those who act as though the person they’re trying to have a dialogue with isn’t even there, because they need to make their point, they need to be right, and they deem the person before them to be beneath them, whether socially or intellectually.

Job knew his friends would likely bristle at what he had to say and would feel compelled to interrupt, challenge, or otherwise verbally try to steamroll over him, so he made it clear that it would be greatly appreciated if they’d let him get his point across, and once that was done, they could return to their previously scheduled program of mocking him. It wasn’t that he held out hope of convincing them. That ship had already sailed, and he knew their mockery would return anew once he was done speaking, but sometimes things must be said for posterity if nothing else.

Even though Job knew the three men who had been accusing him would not change course, and that they would continue down the path of accusation, insinuation, and mockery, he likewise knew he could not keep silent. Even at the risk of having his words seen as cynical, serving to solidify their preconceptions, because an innocent person wouldn’t get so defensive about such things, Job knew he must answer.

One of the most off-putting things you can witness is when an accuser starts playing the victim in order to save face. They can’t prove that the individual they’ve accused has done anything untoward; there is no evidence to substantiate their claim. Yet they keep at it until the person speaks up, and suddenly they feel victimized for being called out. It’s a defense mechanism, a way of saving face without having to concede to the fact that there was nothing substantive in the words you spoke against them.

Some people project guilt on others simply because they’ve concluded that the individual they are attempting to sully needs to come down a peg or two. Taking the words of Job’s friends in the aggregate and at face value, one can’t help but wonder if they’d harbored some resentment against him, and now was the perfect opportunity to let it all out.

The greatest of all the people of the East, huh? How did that turn out for you?

Everyone has someone in their life who will gleefully celebrate their demise. It’s sad, it’s tragic, but it’s also true. What’s worse is that sometimes the individual in question is so unexpected as to blindside you, and now, rather than dealing with one heartache, heartbreak, loss, or tragedy, you’re dealing with two because someone you thought was a friend is holding a bloody knife, grinning maliciously, and waiting for you to expire.

My words may not sway you, you may not alter your course, you will likely think worse of me by the time I’m done, but I need to speak them nonetheless. If ever you were my friends, if ever you cared for me, show me this mercy, extend this grace, bear with me that I may speak, and when I am done, do as you will.

It would not require an overactive imagination to conclude that this seemed like the last wish of a dying man. Given that conjecture was the bread and butter of Job’s three friends, by this point, I doubt any of them held out hope of his being restored. In their minds, Job was getting what he deserved because if he wasn’t guilty of everything they’d presumed him to be guilty of, why would God have allowed him to fall so far so quickly?

Between their confirmation biases, feedback loops agreeing with each other, and the undeniable wretched condition Job was in, there was no other plausible explanation that Job’s three friends would entertain, and he saw the reality of it plainly written on their faces. He was no longer asking that they believe him, just that they bite their tongues long enough for him to say what he needed to say.      

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.