Job XLII

 If a stranger were to approach either of my daughters, insisting that they’d seen me kicking a puppy, they’d call him a liar to his face because they know my character. They wouldn’t even entertain the thought or ask for evidence; they would know offhand that it was a lie and that there was no further need for debate.

As true children of God, there is not a shadow of doubt regarding God’s love, goodness, mercy, and grace because we know the character of the God we serve just as readily as my daughters know mine. Our reaction to trials and hardships, testing and chastening, reveals the level to which we know God. If God is established in your heart, and you acknowledge Him in all your ways, come what may, you will not be moved or shaken. The valleys may be uncomfortable, even painful to the flesh, but your assurance that God is working all things together for good to those who are called according to His purpose will remain resolute.

When we do not know the nature of the God we serve or have a limited understanding of it, then we will interpret the goings on of life in the worst possible light, likely growing bitter and hardened in our hearts along the way.

My little one is not what anyone may call overly cautious. She’s happy and carefree, as children should be for as long as you can manage it, but sometimes, as a father who wants the best for his children and is ever aware of the dangers lurking everywhere, I have to step in and keep her from doing something that will hurt her.

My daughters have a youth Bible study session at church every Wednesday night. I’m usually the one to take them since I like to give my wife a couple of hours of free time when no one’s calling her name every fifteen seconds, and she can decompress. Although both of my daughters know that they should look both ways before crossing the street, the little one is not as cautious when it comes to walking through parking lots. We’d parked in the church parking lot, and before I could turn off the engine, the little one was already out the door. I rushed to catch up, seeing as she was getting ready to sprint to the church door, and as I caught up to her and put my hand on her shoulder to stop her progress, a car zipped by, perhaps two feet from where she was now standing since I’d stopped her momentum.

She didn’t bristle or argue; she just turned her head, and with big eyes, realizing what could have happened had I not stopped her in her tracks, she said, ‘Sorry, Daddy.” Then she took my hand, and we walked into church.

We must allow for the reality that God sees the future far clearer than we, creations with limited understanding, can. In truth, unless we are giving divine insight or some prophetic revelation, we cannot know what the future holds for us as individuals. We have hopes, and we work toward goals, but as far as achieving them or things turning out the way we’d imagined, they rarely do. When God stops our forward momentum, our progress, or takes our hand and steers us away from something we’d intended to pursue, it’s not because He’s being mean or doesn’t want us to have good things, but because He sees the impending danger, and the tragedy that would befall us had we continued on our way.

Some people think they know better than God, so they resist His guidance. They push on, even though His hand is upon them, insisting that they stand still. They pursue their goals even though they are not in harmony with God’s plan for their life, then turn around and blame Him when it comes to ruin, and all that they’d worked and labored for, slips through their fingers like so much ash.

The same goes for when our level of maturity is tested. For every spiritual lesson there is a corresponding exam, and only once we’ve passed the exam can we graduate to the next lesson. If we fail to study to show ourselves approved, we get held back, just as one would get held back in the first grade if he failed to learn the alphabet. Granted, spiritually speaking, some people are still in first grade after decades of failing to learn the most basic or elementary principles of Christ, but that’s on them and not on God.  

Have we learned what we were meant to learn, or did we go through the lesson without applying any of the wisdom to our daily lives? Are we changed for the better? Do we see the world and our place in it through a more spiritually-centered prism? Are we striving for and seeking after the things above and not the things of this earth?

The testing determines the truth of it, and as is often the case, what is on our lips and what is in our hearts are two wholly different things. You can’t cheat your way out of God’s testing or have someone else take the exam for you.

God’s purpose is your maturity, your sanctification, your walking in faith, and the authority rightly due to His children. The reason you have to grow in order to be entrusted with greater responsibility, a greater calling, or a greater gifting is the same reason you don’t let a toddler play with a loaded gun. You need to know the rules, go through safety training, and be mature enough in your understanding to know that there is power in what you’ve been given, and it’s not to be abused, misappropriated, misused, or treated lightly.

Job was a man whom God deemed worthy of testing. The testing of one’s faith ought not to be looked upon as a negative or something to be begged off but as something God deems us worthy of. It’s an honor, a promotion, an achievement, and not a punishment or demotion.

It’s a difficult, almost counterintuitive mind-shift to embrace, especially given all the ignorant voices equating God’s testing with His punishment or reproof. Shortly after being beaten for preaching a risen Christ, the apostles departed from the presence of the council of the Pharisees, rejoicing that they had been counted worthy to suffer shame for His name.

If you are being tested, it’s because God finds you worthy of testing. If you are being chastened, it’s because God loves you, He sees you as a son or daughter, and He chastens those He loves. It may be uncomfortable, disconcerting, even painful in the moment, but the end result will be more of God and less of you, which is the ultimate goal of every believer.

Romans 5:3-5, “And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character, and character, hope. Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.”

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.