Job XXIII

 By definition, an enemy cannot be your friend. Whatever an enemy offers you, however pleasing to the eye, know with certainty that it is poison, something that will weaken if not outright kill you because even though he pretends to be empathetic to your situation or seems as though he’s had a change of heart, he isn’t, and he hasn’t.

The modern-day church doesn’t give the devil enough credit, and this is largely the reason so many find themselves in sinking sand rather than a sure foundation, not knowing how they got to where they are, yearning for the freedom they once took for granted. The devil is cunning. He is a tactician of the highest order, and when he allowed for one of Job’s servants to survive each calamity, it wasn’t because he was being nice or genteel. Their survival served to aid Satan in his purpose of breaking Job. Job needed to know what was happening in real time so that he wouldn’t have the opportunity to recover from the last catastrophe. As far as plans go, it was well thought out and brilliantly executed.

The only thing Satan didn’t figure into the equation was Job’s steadfastness and faithfulness. He was a man who had become superior to pleasure and, as such, had likewise become superior to pain. When God is your everything, there is nothing the enemy can do to shake you from your foundation. It doesn’t mean he won’t try; it means he won’t succeed.

Whether it’s in the form of pleasure or pain, the devil’s purpose is the same. Sadly, many today give in to the pleasure before the pain can ensue because it’s more convenient and beneficial for the devil to tempt someone away from the truth with pleasure than it is through suffering. He can wring more shame and embarrassment out of someone falling into temptation than he can from someone despondent over the pain that has been visited upon them.

You’re more likely to hear of pastors, preachers, and evangelists who fell into sin than you are of ministers who stepped away from ministry because of some tragedy that befell them.

My grandmother’s passing was hard on my grandfather. It was the only time in my life that I saw the light go out of his eyes. I witnessed the same thing with my father when my mother passed. It wasn’t easy, but it was a season they had to battle through, and nothing could alleviate the pain of their loss except for spending time in the presence of God.

As most Eastern European families are wont to do, we were close. The seven of us lived in a two-bedroom apartment for the better part of thirteen years, and when seven turned into six, the loss was monumental and evident. By the time my mother went to her reward, half of us were living in the States and half in Romania, so the constant reminder of loss wasn’t so vivid, but still, it is inevitable that we feel loss when a loved one is no more. Even so, we do not sorrow as those who have no hope. We know that one day, we will be reunited with those who sleep in Jesus, and if our day comes that we return to the earth before His return, those who will mourn us will do so with the same hope.  

The overarching hope of salvation and the promises of God must be an ever-present reality in our hearts and minds, no matter the valley we must presently traverse. It is faith in Him and nothing else that will see us through, perhaps scarred and wounded, but whole and with our conviction that God is good fully intact.

Positivity, witticisms, mantras, slogans, platitudes, and catchphrases will fail you when the pain gets unbearable. The comfort that the presence of God brings never will. It is the reason that throughout the ages, those who knew God only desired more of Him. He is not some side dish we can pay the extra dollar for if we are so inclined. He is the main course, the one thing without which nothing in life would make sense.

Job didn’t have a church family to lean on, he didn’t have a counselor he could pour his heart out to, he didn’t have the modern conveniences we take for granted in that he could pick up a telephone and call a friend. All Job had was God, and God was enough.

Millennia later, God is still enough. He is unchanging in His power, He is unchanging in His attributes, He is unchanging in His promises, and He is unchanging in His love for His creation. This unchanging nature of God provides us with a sense of security and reassurance in our faith, knowing that we serve a God who is consistent and reliable.

Satan had wrongly assumed that Job’s relationship with God was superficial. He wrongly assumed that Job served God because God blessed the work of His hands, not out of a genuine desire to know Him. Upon hearing of the multiple tragedies that had befallen him, Job’s response was direct and unwavering: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

No more needed to be said. There was no need for Job to elaborate. Two sentences encapsulated Job’s most fundamental conviction that God was sovereign over all, and whether He gave or He took, His name is to be blessed. How many people walking about today, beating their chests, and insisting they are prophets to the nations and the apple of God’s eye would have the same reaction given the same circumstances Job faced?

That is the hard question with which we must all contend as individuals: Will we serve God as faithfully and unwaveringly if everything we’ve come to take for granted in this life were snatched away in an instant? Our answer will be contingent on whether our relationship with Him is deep, profound, and all-consuming or merely a superficial thing we wouldn’t miss were it to go away.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.