Job XXXV

 There are only so many keys on a piano and only so many ways to make a quiche. Although you can add ingredients to the recipe, the base ingredients remain predictably similar. Although grand compositions can be played on a piano, the base notes never change. It’s the way in which they are arranged and the skill with which they are played that grips one’s attention and that makes a concert either memorable or something soon forgotten.

Although the enemy is quick to add a wrinkle or two when it comes to his attacks on the household of faith, three primary and indispensable ingredients are always included in the mix because they are the most effective by far. There’s the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. These are the three mainstays the enemy uses as his vehicles of attack, and knowing this, we must do our utmost to guard against them.

While the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes weren’t on the table as far as Job was concerned because he’d already proven he was an upright and blameless man, the pride of life was what the enemy focused on, thinking this would be his way in.

Satan wrongly assumed that since Job was the greatest of all the people of the East, his identity and purpose were wrapped up in his possessions and that he leaned on them rather than God for his peace and joy. If the enemy believes that you draw your strength from anything other than God, he will attack that thing. He will do so repeatedly, mercilessly, and inventively, believing that if the position or possession is brought to ruin, then your faith in God and His goodness will be shaken and shattered.

We’ve all known people who were so wrapped up in a title they held or a possession they’d acquired that when the thing they focused on, sacrificed for, and obsessed over for so long began to crumble under the weight of its own design, they grow bitter toward God, rejecting the way, and hardening their hearts. If your hope is rooted in the fleeting and insubstantial, you have no abiding hope. If what animates you and gives you purpose are the things of this earth, once they are shaken, shattered, and are no more, all you’ll have left is that hollow, empty feeling that becomes a constant companion.

When God is your everything when He alone satisfies the longing of your soul, then come what may, as long as you have Him, cling to Him, and follow Him, you will not be shaken or broken upon the rocks of life.

Tragedy befalls all men. The one choice we have is how we react to it. When I was younger, I sang in a choir and played guitar in church. It was back before the days of the interwebs, where all the information you ever wanted to know about any given subject was just a few clicks away, but I made it a point to research how certain hymns we sang in church had come about and originated.

While Hillsong is the flavor du jour for most today, I still gravitate toward the old hymns that have a message which resonates and that isn’t so vague as to be interchangeable with a love ballad lip-synced by an over-the-hill crooner. I figured there had to be something more than writing out a few verses to songs that, over the years, had been translated into hundreds of languages, Romanian included.

The first song I researched was Amazing Grace, which, it turns out, was written by a formerly foul-mouthed slaver named John Newton, who, once converted, became an abolitionist and preacher.

The second song I spent endless hours discovering the history of was “It is Well With My Soul,” which was penned by a man with a story very similar to Job’s. It was written by a man named Horatio Spafford, a devout Christian who also happened to be a lawyer and businessman. He’d lost most of his real estate holdings in the great Chicago fire, then his four daughters in a shipwreck, and from the depths of his soul, he penned the lyrics to a song that would stand the test of time and be a comfort to many who found themselves traversing the valleys of life.

It is a grace beyond words to have the wherewithal to cling to Jesus in the midst of trial, knowing that while the storms of life will pass, Jesus will remain ever steadfast, faithful, and true.

Just as Paul would verbalize thousands of years later, Job had his priorities well established, and God came first, always, without fail, no matter the circumstance or situation. We have countless testimonies spanning millennia wherein men and women persevered and overcame not because there was something inherently special in their family tree or their upbringing but because they made the conscious decision to steadfastly cling to God no matter what they faced.

Looking at their life stories in the aggregate, one readily concludes that martyrdom might not be so bad after all. I know where I’m going when this journey is done. It is well with my soul, no matter what may come. Do not let fear of tomorrow keep you from worshipping God today or the concerns of this life keep you from cementing your relationship with Him.

There is a permanence in God that stretches beyond this present life into eternity. We squander so much time focusing on the temporal while giving the eternal so little attention when eternity is all that matters.

Where is your treasure? Who is your treasure? The answer to these all-important questions will determine whether your testimony will be one of a conqueror or a cautionary tale of one who has been conquered.

Philippians 3:8, “Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ.”

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.