Job V

 It’s become increasingly popular to try and get through life on platitudes. Those who seek to make merchandise of the household of faith are quick to offer easy answers to difficult questions, even though they are fully aware that their answers hold no weight, nor do they stand up to any scrutiny. It’s a numbers game to them, and as long as half of the people they’re delivering their one-liners to don’t bother to think them through or push back on the vapidness of their declarations, they’ll still end up ahead at the end of the day.

Good things happen to good people, and bad things happen to bad people, so be good and send your best love offering today so that good things happen to you. Overly simplistic, to be sure, but we have more important things to think about, like our fantasy football league, so we’ll take the easy answer and run with it until the day the bad thing we thought we’d avoided by being generous to the snake oil salesman on television makes an appearance at the worst possible time. Admittedly, there’s never a good day for something bad or unexpected to occur in one’s life, but living as though nothing bad will ever occur makes those days all the more impactful.

Had Job been the sort of man to assume that he would never have to suffer loss or be tested because he was blameless and upright when the day came and his testing commenced, likely, his faith would not have endured the pressure brought to bear, and as so many tend to do, he would have given in to bitterness and resentment. Our expectations in relation to serving God must be biblical. If they don’t pass that singular litmus test, when our season of testing comes upon us, our first reaction will be shock and surprise because deep in our hearts, we believe ourselves to be immune from such hardship.

The danger of believing something extra-biblical is that the faith you placed in it will shatter into a million pieces once it is proven a fallacy. A life lived in obedience to God is not a guarantee of earthly comforts or an easy life. It’s been sold as such to a modern audience whose only concern is for the here and now, but just as people often buy counterfeit items because the price is just too good to pass up, so do many in today’s church buy into the idea that all their greedy little hearts ever yearned for is just a sinner’s prayer away even though had they bothered to read God’s Word they would realize they’ve been sold a bill of goods.

When what they were promised does not materialize, when, having raised that hand and said that prayer, their life doesn’t magically get better, when they still have to struggle to make the rent or eat Ramen for a week because that’s all they can afford, they feel like they’ve been lied to, cheated, and bamboozled and conclude that the God presented to them as their ticket to easy street must not be as advertised after all.

But God never promised any of the things to which you clung with such desperation. He never promised you’d win the lottery a day after you walked up the aisle or that you’d find a million dollars someone forgot on a bus bench. All these things are the machinations of men who believed they needed to add something more to the gospel in order to make it attractive to the masses. They were wrong. You don’t need to add anything more to the gospel message than what it already promises those who would humble themselves, repent, and believe in Jesus.

Forgiveness of sin, being washed clean, and reconciled to the Father, eternity with Him when this life is through, and a constant companion while you still walk this earth is already the greatest offer you’ll ever receive. Yet, some still consider it is not enough.

Job was a man wholly satisfied in God. He did not derive his satisfaction from the things he possessed but rather from having a relationship with God, knowing Him, loving Him, and obeying Him in all things. The attitude of his heart was right; therefore, he was able to endure what would come upon him. Had it not been, it would have been a different story, with a different ending, but it was, and it’s the reason he remains an example of what a believer’s attitude during hardships should be to this day.

One of the bleakest seasons of my grandfather’s life was the loss of his wife, my grandmother, at a relatively young age. One would think it would be the beatings, electric chair, torture, or the constant threat of being sent to a labor camp never to see his family again, but in comparison, although unpleasant and painful physically, the loss of his wife was a more difficult valley to traverse by far.

We had multiple conversations on the topic sometime after the wound of her loss was no longer fresh, and he would always get this look in his eyes as though he was reliving the moment. During one of our conversations, he said something that resonates to this day, both simple and profound: “I had the choice of letting go of God or clinging to Him all the more. I chose to cling to Him all the more.”

When the dust finally settles, and the initial shock of witnessing one’s life implode in real time wears off, it boils down to the binary choice of trusting in God and clinging to Him or hardening one’s heart and letting go. The choice we make depends upon the sort of relationship we had with God before the testing, the kind of faith we had in His sovereignty, and in the promise that all things work together for good to those who love God and to those who are called according to His purpose.

Trials and testing are not neutral events. They change you. It is inevitable. You either pull closer to God or push away from Him, but you cannot remain the same. Anyone who tells you their trial or testing did not change them, whether for good or ill, is just trying to put on a brave face.

Do you know God well enough to trust Him in the storm? If the answer is no, there is no better time than now to deepen your relationship with Him. 

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.