Job CXI

 There is a realm beyond the physical that is just as real. A realm with principalities and powers, where the war between light and darkness rages, where good and evil are well defined and delineated, and the human soul is both the prize and the object of contention. From time to time, some of us are given a glimpse beyond the veil of the physical into the spiritual realm, and we quickly realize that the picture in our minds of chubby cherubs playing harps on puffy clouds couldn’t be further from reality.

One need only read the account of Daniel and that it took twenty-one days for the messenger to make his way to him, having had to battle the prince of the kingdom of Persia and be aided by Michael, one of the chief princes, to understand how preposterous some of the fables being spun by so-called modern-day prophets are.

You’re telling me a messenger had to fight his way to Daniel for twenty-one days, yet you’re getting teleported to heaven via a porta-potty every other day? You’re telling me that every time someone is graced with seeing an angel or a messenger of the Lord, they are undone and see the frailty of their current existence, yet you claim to have sat on God’s lap, braided His beard, and even played a spirited game of pinochle, being so flippant about it as to infer it was just another Tuesday?

We sit enraptured listening to individuals who should likely be institutionalized regale us with stories of pet dinosaurs and body part rooms in heaven, not realizing we are surrounded by spiritual hosts and war is being waged on our behalf. We’ve infantilized the spiritual realm to such an extent that we are wholly ignorant of its reality. No, you cannot obtain victory without battle. No, the enemy will not flee from you if you do not resist him.

We have become as children playing at being adults. We have become as couch potatoes playing at being soldiers. Walking circumspectly with our God and being sober-minded in all things is too boring for our taste. We would rather have aliens and blue beams than Christ and the cross. We would rather play some deranged version of Where’s Waldo trying to spot the antichrist than prepare our hearts and minds for the eventuality of suffering for His name’s sake.

The world will do what God said it would do, and it will become what He warned it would become. How we meet that iteration of humanity wherein we will be hated by all because we belong to Him, betrayed by those closest to us, and finding no solace, safety, or security but in His embrace is something we are individually and wholly in control of. If you’re driving down the road and see a sign warning you that the bridge is out a mile ahead, if you gun it rather than turn around, it’s nobody’s fault but your own. It’s not as though the sign wasn’t big enough or that there weren’t multiple signs by the time you nosedived into the depths. You ignored the warnings and the signs because you either thought you knew better or that all the flashing lights were simply hyperbolic fearmongering.

Our duty is to count the cost and ensure we are willing to pay the full freight. Jesus didn’t mollycoddle his disciples or hold back when it came to telling them what their futures held should they choose to follow after Him. He didn’t promise them mansions of private jets, the approval or adoration of the masses, or any comfort while they walked this earth.

He made it clear that they would be persecuted, hated, put to death, mocked, belittled, spoken evil of, dismissed, rejected, and villainized. If you sign on, you’re not signing up for an all-expenses paid life at Club Med. You’re signing on for a lifetime of battle, service, trials, tribulations, and hardships galore, but the prize at the end of your race, the reward at the end of your journey, is well worth any hardship you may incur on your way to it.

Jesus wasn’t trying to sell a timeshare. He didn’t bury the lead or have a dozen pages of fine print that he insisted his disciples ignore because it was just for legal purposes and not really that important. He made it very clear what we as His servants should expect while in the world, and not telling the truth to those we would have embrace it, does nothing for them except give them false expectations of what they think their Christian walk will be.

Job knew that both blessing and adversity come from the hand of God. He knew that although he could despise his current existence and even wish that he would perish, he could charge God with no wrong because He is sovereign over all.

Job 8:11-18, “Can the papyrus grow without a marsh? Can the reeds flourish without water? While it is yet green and not cut down, it withers before any other plant. So are the paths of all who forget God; and the hope of the hypocrite shall perish, whose confidence shall be cut off, and whose trust is a spider’s web. He leans on his house, but it does not stand. He holds it fast, but it does not endure. He grows green in the sun, and his branches spread out in his garden. His roots wrap around the rock heap, and look for a place in the stones. If he is destroyed from this place, then it will deny him, saying, ‘I have not seen you.’”

In his attempt to undergird his conclusion and prove that he was right in his assessment, Bildad began to pontificate. He didn’t come right out and say that Job had forgotten God or that he was a hypocrite, but he alluded to it nonetheless because, in his understanding, he could not fathom that Job had not done something to displease God and bring upon himself the tragedy that had befallen him.

It’s okay to admit that you don’t know the reason or purpose around some event in your life or someone else’s life as long as you acknowledge and fully trust that God does. We were never meant to know everything. Even the best of us see in part and understand in part, but what we were meant to do is grow our faith and our trust in the God we serve to the point that come what may we rest in Him and are at peace.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Job CX

 Even when God is silent, He is present. Even when life is hard, God is there. Even when we are crushed and carrying on another day seems an impossible task, His mercies endure. The purpose of your trial may not be evident to you, but it is known to God, and you can take solace in the undeniable, unshakeable, unequivocal truth that good will come of it. It may be that you won’t get to see the good that your trial produced, yet know that it is assured.

I don’t have what some might label prized possessions. I don’t collect watches or tie clips, and the Salvation Army down the road would likely refuse to take half the stuff I own on principle because even the homeless have standards, but the one exception is a cardboard box filled to the brim with notebooks of stories I’ve collected over the years, first and secondhand accounts of people who were persecuted, tortured, and even martyred for the cause of Christ.

The box keeps getting moved from one closet to the other depending on how much room my daughters and their ever-expanding wardrobe of sparkly dresses require, and yesterday, I was informed that my box was in their way and I needed to move it. They said it nicely enough, but it seemed an urgent enough matter to them wherein I dutifully went and picked up my box and moved it.

It had been some time since I’d perused any of the notebooks, and since I had a few minutes, I picked a random one out of the box and began to leaf through it. I read through a couple of the stories contained in the notebook, but there is one in particular that came to mind as I was contemplating the notion that just as Moses was not given to enter the promised land, we may not be given the opportunity to see the good that our trials and hardships produce.

Vasile was not yet a teenager when the police showed up at their home, snatched his father, Toma, and spirited him away in the middle of the night. Toma was a preacher, the type of preacher who was not bashful about sharing his faith in Christ with any who would hear, and news of his dissidence had reached the county officials, who in turn delivered his name to the Securitate.

That night was the last time Vasile would see his father. “The last sermon I heard my father preach,” Vasile said, “was on Romans 8, and how all things work together for good. For the longest time, I couldn’t reconcile that scripture passage with what my mother and I had been going through after losing my dad, and even though my mother was a praying woman who insisted we memorize Scripture every night, I grew bitter in my heart. Not knowing what had happened to my father also weighed heavily on me; the only information we’d ever received came by way of an officer showing up three weeks after he’d been taken to inform us that he was deceased and handing over a certificate of death. They didn’t even bother to bring the body. We never got to have a proper funeral for him. Just a man in a uniform delivering the worst news I’d ever heard in cold, clipped tones.

Almost six years later, close to my eighteenth birthday, a man showed up to our apartment and asked if he could speak to me. By then, my bitterness had been on a slow simmer for years, and I planned to go to university and pursue a career in engineering. I still believed in God, but as far as a relationship with Him, I must admit, it was lacking.

The man introduced himself as Remus, and although he was wearing civilian clothing, I knew he was some type of government official, whether police or Securitate. You could always tell. It’s in their posture, mannerisms, and how they carry themselves. Not so much the haircuts but their bearing.

The man asked if he could come in, and knowing that if I refused, he’d likely come in anyway, I nodded and moved aside. My mother was in the kitchen plucking the feathers off a chicken, and after motioning for the man to sit, I asked how I could be of help.

He squirmed for a while, rubbing his hands together and unable to meet my gaze until, staring at the floor with all the intensity he could muster, he said, “I was there for the last few days of your father’s life. I didn’t have a hand in it, but I was witness to it, being a young officer at the time. Your dad changed my life. I’ve never met someone with more conviction and assurance that there was something beyond this life. He never despaired; no matter what they did to him, he never once despaired. I found Jesus because of what I saw in your father. I’ve been meaning to look you up for a couple of years now, and I felt this was the right time. I just wanted you to know some good came of his suffering.”

I had no words. I don’t think I could have found any even if I’d tried, but one thing did happen, which I remember clearly all these years later: all the pent-up bitterness, the anger, the resentment, the doubts I’d been harboring that I’d never shared with anyone disappeared in an instant. It was like flipping a switch and turning on a light, and what was once murky and in shadow became bright and illuminated.

That one conversation changed the course of my life, and I reminded Remus of this every time we met over another twelve years. Just as my father had changed his life, his visit had changed mine. I got to preach Remus’s funeral and shared this testimony as his friends and family gathered to say their final farewells.

I never went to university, I didn’t become an engineer, but I became a pastor, and now, thirty years later, with six children of my own, I can echo my father’s last sermon, not as an afterthought or something I feel compelled to say, but as a cornerstone of my faith: all things do work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”

Toma did not live long enough to see the fulfillment of this promise, but he died believing it to be true. We are predisposed to wanting to see, to feel, to touch, to taste, and to experience in the physical what can only be seen in the spiritual. Sometimes, we don’t get to see it or feel it; we don’t get to see the fulfillment of the promise with our eyes of flesh, but we know with an unshakeable faith that comes about by witnessing God’s repeated faithfulness that it will be so.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Job CIX

 Every conclusion Bildad came to was through the prism of the physical. Everything was filtered through human understanding, making no allowance for the possibility that something other, something more, or something different was going on. He lived in a world of black and white with no gray areas to be had, and everything had to have a logical explanation that he could decipher, given enough brain power.

Your sons must have sinned; ergo, God cast them away for their transgression. God has not awakened for you and prospered your rightful dwelling place; ergo, you are not pure and upright.

To Bildad, everything had a simple explanation, and the simplest, most appropriate explanation he came up with is that Job had some hidden sin he was unwilling to confess. This perspective is important in the context of suffering and faith, as it raises the question of whether suffering is always a result of personal sin. Job’s travails show us that it’s not, and we would be remiss if we did not consider the complexity of suffering in the context of faith.

What did you do? Nothing. Well, you must have done something. But I didn’t. Now you’re just lying and putting on an air of spiritual superiority, aren’t you? Job had months to go through every chapter of his life to pinpoint where he had erred, where he had displeased God, or sinned in some form or fashion. He was not above repenting had he discovered something heretofore overlooked, but there was nothing, and not knowing why this had befallen him was an added layer of constant grief.

Suffering due to something you know yourself to be guilty of and suffering while knowing you are innocent of what you’re being accused of doing have different mental impacts. As the kids like to say, it hits differently. I did the crime, now I’m doing the time, and that’s the way it is. You make your peace with the reality that, on some level, your punishment is deserved, and although you might have liked it otherwise, you understand why you find yourself in your current predicament. But if you’re in a cage waiting for someone to bring you a cup of water, knowing that you’ve done nothing to deserve your current lot, the injustice of it weighs as heavily on one’s countenance as the situation itself.

It is said that if you take five individuals, accuse them of the same crime, and put them all in a jail cell, the one who goes to sleep is the guilty party because he knows he’s been caught and might as well get some rest. The innocent, those not guilty of the crime they’ve been accused of, tend to pace back and forth, decry their guilt, insist upon their innocence, and plead with their jailors to hear them out. This concept of ‘the innocent’ is crucial in understanding the mental impacts of suffering, as it highlights the psychological turmoil of being falsely accused and the desperate plea for justice in the face of suffering.

Job 8:8-10, “For inquire, please, of the former age, and consider the things discovered by the fathers; For we were born yesterday, and know nothing, because our days on earth are a shadow. Will they not teach you and tell you, and utter words from their heart?”

If Bildad, who likely predated the Patriarchs, could say that Job should consider the things discovered by the fathers, how much more do we have to look back on and glean understanding from? There is no viable excuse for any believer in our day and age to be ignorant of God, His will, His purpose, and His nature. We could excuse it, perhaps, in those of Job’s generation, given the limited availability of historical data and the lack of proliferation of printed materials, but even Bildad pointed out that what they had thus far learned from the fathers was enough to shape and form some sort of understanding, partial though it was.

I would be remiss if, in discussing Joseph and his journey from the mountaintop to the valley, back to the mountaintop, then the valley, then the mountaintop again, I did not mention his father Jacob, whom God Himself declared He loved. No small thing to be loved by God, yet for eighteen years, Jacob lived with the belief that Joseph, his beloved son, was dead. He carried the burden of Joseph being torn apart by wild beasts for longer than Joseph had been alive when he thought he’d lost him, and never once did God whisper in Jacob’s ear, “Do not despair; he lives.”

Imagine the weight that would have been lifted from Jacob’s shoulders upon hearing that one sentence. Imagine the relief, the joy, the utter jubilation at knowing that his son was not lost, that he had not gone to the grave but that he lived. Yet Jacob was kept in the dark. God did not reveal the one thing that would have taken Jacob’s pain away but comforted him, molded him, and grew him in his pain. This is a testament to the potential for growth in suffering, a beacon of hope in the darkest of times.

It was only after Jacob shook off the lie that Joseph was dead that God spoke to him that very night, telling him to go to Egypt and see his son. Oftentimes, the prejudices we hold and the lies we believe are so deeply rooted in our hearts that they block out the voice of God, and were He to speak clearly, we would brush it off because it would contradict what we believe to be established facts.

During a conversation with a former cessationist, he said something that stuck with me for the longest time. Because of his conviction that the gifts had ceased with the early church Apostles, when God began speaking to him, for the longest time, he thought he was either losing his mind or hearing the enemy's voice. The more he prayed, however, the more he heard the voice of God until the experience forced him to go back to the Word and discover for himself that things were not as he believed or as he had been taught.    

1 Corinthians 4:5, “Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord comes, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness and reveal the counsels of the heart. Then each one’s praise will come from God.”

Just because you think a situation is hopeless, it doesn’t mean God does. Just because you can’t see a way out of a predicament, it doesn’t mean God hasn’t already made a way. We must allow for the reality that God sees what we cannot and walk by faith rather than sight. Your sight will hinder you. It will disincline you to press onward, sap your energy and enthusiasm to continue on your journey, and bring to mind all the things that are wrong, that can go wrong, or that might go wrong, keeping you static and unmoving.

Faith sees beyond the present, beyond the now, beyond the current situation one might find themselves in, and propels us ever forward toward the prize, toward the goal, toward the reward He will bring upon His return to give to everyone according to his work. Eyes of faith allow you to see what will be based on the promises God has made in His word, giving us full assurance that our light affliction, our temporary suffering, our season of heartache or hurt is working for us a far more exceeding weight of glory.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job CVIII

It’s also important to remember that while we see the past and the present with no certainty about the future as far as our individual selves are concerned, God’s perspective is one of eternity. He knows the end from the beginning. He is not constrained by time and space, and He knows that what we may deem as a negative today will produce good fruit and testimony in our lives six months or a year down the road. The pruning and the shaping may hurt for a season, but the end result is worth the temporary pain we may have to endure in order to attain what could only be produced by the aforementioned pruning and shaping.

I do not know what tomorrow may bring for myself or my family, but I know that God is already there, making a way, and so I do not fear or concern myself with it. We spend far too much time trying to affect things we can’t control and ignore the things that we can. I can dwell on the future, obsess over it, and run in circles until I’m ragged and discombobulated, but tomorrow will still come with its own troubles.

I’ve learned to focus on the things I can control, and leave those I can’t to God. I have control over how much time I spend with God. I have control over how much time I spend in the Word. I have control over where I choose to focus my time and energy on any given day. What I can’t control is whether my car decides to break down in the middle of the road or if I get a flat tire because someone decided it was perfectly reasonable to throw a fistful of nails out their window.

Obsessing over things we have no control over is another of the enemy’s tactics to keep us from deepening our relationship with God and building up our most holy faith. If I constantly focus on something that may happen tomorrow, I won’t take the time to grow in God today. But you don’t understand! The world is a scary place, and getting scarier by the day. I do, though. I understand better than most people and even have the added weight of ensuring my kids get fed and have a roof over their heads, but I know my limitations. I know what I can control, I know what I can’t, and I choose to focus on seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, knowing that all these things will be added on.

We cannot know the end of a thing or its final iteration because we are not omniscient. God does because He is. Every situation seems positive or negative based on its effect on us in the present, but the present comes and goes in the blink of an eye, and what may have seemed a glorious thing today can readily become bitter and offputting tomorrow. Likewise, what seemed difficult and insurmountable today can readily become the moment of your greatest victory tomorrow.

We need look no further than the life story of Joseph to see how quickly what was meant for evil can be turned into good and that your current lot is not indicative of your future or the course your life will take. To go from being the favored son to being sold into slavery by one’s own brothers, to being made overseer of Potiphar’s house only to be thrown in prison after being falsely accused by Potiphar’s wife, to becoming the most powerful man in Egypt second only to the Pharaoh himself, one can readily say that Joseph’s life had its ups and down.

Through it all, Joseph held to his integrity, his faith, and his convictions, whether he was being sold as a slave or being clothed in fine linen and having a gold chain placed around his neck.

Whatever your circumstance, cling to God. One’s faithfulness cannot be contingent on their current lot, nor can it be conditional depending on whether God does as we will. God will do as He wills, and if you are faithful in the present, if you are faithful today, tomorrow and its outcome may surprise and stun you.

Whether as a slave or in a prison cell, Joseph did not have the promise of restoration or even justice. The only things he had were a handful of dreams he’d dreamt that seemed so out of reach at certain points in his life as to be laughable. His obedience and faithfulness to God were not proffered with conditions or strings attached. Joseph served God because He is God and worthy of our servitude. Anything beyond that, Joseph left in the hands of the God he served. Were there moments in his life when he could have grumbled or thought God unjust? Most assuredly. Whether being thrown in prison for resisting the advances of Potiphar’s wife or being forgotten by the butler whose dream he had interpreted, Joseph had plenty of reasons to despair, yet he did not. He languished in prison for two full years after the chief butler got reinstated and summarily forgot about Joseph until the Pharaoh had a dream, and he was brought to the butler’s mind afresh, knowing all this time that he was an innocent man and had not done what Potiphar’s wife had accused him of.

Whatever you may be going through, do not despair. Even if you have been unjustly accused and suffer the wrath of the godless, knowing yourself to be innocent, do not grow bitter. God has a plan, He always does; and when the last chapter is written, you will look back on your story and see the faithfulness of God on every page.

He is faithful. If I’ve learned anything over the last thirty-eight years of ministry, it’s that our God is faithful. As long as our eyes are on Him rather than our current situation, circumstance, or trial, we will press ever onward and, with each passing day, see the pieces falling into place and His plans come into focus, providing clarity.

When you’re in the valley, your view will always be limited. When you’re on the mountain top, however, you see the panorama for what it is and realize the beauty of it all. Even in the darkest valleys, His light remains an ever-present beacon that guides us and gives us comfort. Even when all seems lost, and the only thing that could provide a remedy is an outright miracle, thankfully, you serve a miracle-working God.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Job CVII

 Job 8:1-7, “Then Bildad the Shuhite answered and said: ‘How long will you speak these things, and the words of your mouth be like a strong wind? Does God subvert judgment? Or does the Almighty pervert justice? If your sons have sinned against Him, He has cast them away for their transgression. If you would earnestly seek God and make your supplication to the Almighty, if you were pure and upright, surely now He would awake for you, and prosper your rightful dwelling place. Though your beginning was small, yet your latter end would increase abundantly.’”

If you thought Eliphaz’s remarks to Job were cutting, Bildad’s words were downright cruel. Being the traditionalist that he was, his take on the matter was that everything that had happened to Job thus far was deserved. He even went so far as to insinuate that Job’s sons had met their demise because they had sinned against God; therefore, He had cast them away for their transgression. Keep in mind that these were Job’s closest friends, men he’d likely known for decades, but as is evident, although they were keen on passing judgment, they lacked compassion of any sort.

Perhaps it was sitting in the dirt for seven days in silence that got to them, but while they sat in perfect health, Job had painful oozing boils to contend with on top of mourning the loss of his ten children and trying to process the loss of everything he owned. Job’s friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, had come to comfort him in his time of distress, but their words and actions often added to his suffering rather than alleviating it.

We cannot dismiss the possibility that the words Job’s friends spoke were influenced by some nefarious force, perhaps Satan himself, in an attempt to demoralize him even further. We got the sense that there was a duality of thought as Eliphaz spoke, where he caught himself speaking words intended to wound rather than comfort. Then Bildad comes along, and he holds nothing back, with the opening lines of his discourse being so caustic and acidic as to make one wonder if he considered Job his friend.

It seems as though Bildad was already tiring of Job’s words, even though, given the situation he was in, he had every right to voice his pain and the injustice of it all, whether real or perceived. Had he done something he’d known to have been a sin, then, at least, he would understand the reason this was happening to him, but having had months to go through the entirety of his life, he had yet to find one thing he deemed an offense to God.

That’s a high bar. To go back over all the years of your life and be unable to find a misstep, a mistake, or a situation wherein you fell short of the standard. There’s a reason God deemed Job unique among his contemporaries. It wasn’t something He did offhandedly or rashly. Job was a blameless and upright man who feared God and shunned evil. That couldn’t be said of anyone else living in his generation.

There is a time and place for simple, straightforward explanations. When your kids keep nagging you about why they should be eating broccoli when Sour Patch Kids taste so much better, it’s perfectly fine to tell them that broccoli is good for you and Sour Patch Kids will make your poo glow in the dark. I didn’t think that one through because now they really want to see if they can get their poo to glow in the dark, but the analogy holds nonetheless.

When it comes to life, spiritual battles, trials, hardships, and testing, a simple explanation just isn’t viable. Bildad thought there was, and he even reasoned out that there could be no other explanation save that Job had sinned. Does God subvert judgment? Or does the Almighty pervert justice? Obviously not; therefore, you must have done something, just as your sons must have; otherwise, you wouldn’t be in this pickle.

Psalm 11:3-7, “If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do? The Lord is in His holy temple, the Lord’s throne is in heaven; His eyes behold, His eyelids test the sons of men. The Lord tests the righteous, but the wicked and the one who loves violence His soul hates. Upon the wicked He will rain coals; Fire and brimstone and a burning wind shall be the portion of their cup. For the Lord is righteous, He loves righteousness; His countenance beholds the upright.”

And with one Psalm, David blew Bildad’s entire theory, along with the cottage industry of the prosperity gospel, out of the water. The Lord tests the righteous. It is a truth we cannot overlook or circumvent because it’s inconvenient. If we cannot differentiate between testing and judgment, then rather than voice our opinion on a given situation, silence is our best course of action.

God does as He wills, and there is a purpose in all that He does. This truth must be the foundation stone of our faith, and if it is, nothing we encounter in this life; no hardship, trial, or testing we go through will shake us or cause us to crumble into the dust.

Once again, we come full circle as to why doctrine matters. If my expectations of a sovereign God only go so far as having a wish granter here on earth and eternity in paradise for the low, low price of raising a hand in a church setting, then whenever hardship or testing comes, my natural instinct will be to bristle, grow angry, bitter and disillusioned. I was promised this life of glorious prosperity, perfect health, no adversity or trial, and what I’m getting is being steamrolled by life, and even what seemed like easy wins manage to fall apart somehow.

But why can’t God just take my word for it when I promise I’ll be faithful? Why can’t He just bless and prosper me until I die peacefully in my sleep, well over one hundred years old, in my mansion on the hill? It sounds like God has trust issues if He can’t take my word at face value. God also knows that the hearts of men are deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. He knows that fair weather fealty is easy to pull off, but when called upon to stand and fight, to go to war or defend the kingdom, the pledge of fealty gets a bit wobbly, and the excuses as to why it’s not the best time to be called upon to sacrifice pour forth like a breached dam.

God tests the righteous and chastens those He loves. If you are being left to your own devices, knowing yourself to be wandering from the light with no correction in sight, rather than a reason for rejoicing or concluding that God doesn’t mind the duplicity after all, it ought to be a reason for deep concern, if not outright fear.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job CVI

 Deception can only ever be allowed to take root in a heart when that heart is not fully saturated with the Word of God. Just as pesticide kills weeds, the Word of God kills deception. Even if we have to admit that some dream, or some vision was not from God, eating a slice of humble pie is by far preferable to being judged by God for speaking something He never spoke and attributing it to Him. Sober-mindedness is not an option; it’s a mandate, a command, and something we must strive to be, especially when it comes to spiritual matters. There is certainty, and then there is guesswork. There is revelation, and then there is personal opinion. These concepts cannot be conflated, nor are they interchangeable.

Job was being tormented by dreams and visions, and he assumed they came from God. Assumption is a dangerous playground to spend time in because, whether consciously or subconsciously, our preconceived notions, prejudices, partialities, and preconceptions will come to the fore, attempting to sway us and insisting that this one time, we can ignore what Scripture says because what we think or feel better suits us than what the Bible says. Assume nothing. Verify everything, and use the Word of God as your plumb line, litmus test, and absolute authority in every matter.

Although we have the benefit of the written word, Job didn’t, and after months of torment, night terrors, and demoralizing visions, he assumed they came from God, not understanding the purpose or allowing for the possibility that there was a nefarious third party at work. We can look our noses down on Job and insist that we would have proceeded differently, but all of us have been guilty of blaming God for something we did to ourselves with our own two hands and trying to circumvent accountability by insisting it was the devil rather than our lack of self-control. The devil didn’t make you eat the chocolate cake! You drove yourself to the store, put the cake in your cart, paid for it, drove back home, and proceeded to devour it in one sitting. Even though the box said there were fifteen servings, we all know that’s arbitrary.

Don’t blame God for what the devil does, and don’t credit the devil for what God does. When we fall into this snare, we tend to project an image of needless cruelty on a good and loving God or conclude that the enemy of our soul isn’t so bad after all, just misunderstood.

Job 7:17-21, “What is man, that You should exalt him, that You should set Your heart on him, that You should visit him every morning and test him every moment? How long? Will You not look away from me, and let me alone till I swallow my saliva? Have I sinned? What have I done to You, O watcher of men? Why have You set me as Your target, so that I am a burden to myself? Why then do You not pardon my transgression, and take away my iniquity? For now I will lie down in the dust, and You will seek me diligently, but I will no longer be.”

When we falsely attribute a season of testing to punishment of some kind, self-recrimination is a given. What did I do? When did I do it? It must have been something grievous since I am suffering, but I can’t think of anything. Still, there must have been something; otherwise, why am I going through what I’m going through?

It took months for Job to come to this place, but he arrived here nevertheless. Given enough time, without proper understanding, we all arrive at the same spot. Again, because it’s so important and relevant, Job did not have the benefit of Scripture to bring him an understanding of the possibility that this could be something other than God’s punishment. He felt as though God was targeting him, and he wanted some understanding.

Why? Why is this happening to me, and if the reason was a transgression, why do You not pardon it and take away my iniquity? How long must I suffer? Should not the punishment be commensurate with the crime, and if I’ve committed a crime or some offense, could I not be made aware of what it was? At least then, I’d understand.

Imagine if every time you sat down to take a test, you got all the answers in advance. It wouldn’t be a test, would it? This is why faith is so crucial. It gives you the strength to press on, persevere, and endure, even when the why isn’t clear. As long as I know the God I serve, as long as I know that His mercies are new every morning, and as long as I know He is a good Father, the why becomes irrelevant. This faith is not just a belief but a source of strength and comfort in the midst of trials.

If you have searched your heart and know that your singular desire has been to walk circumspectly and grow ever more into the image of the risen Christ, then whatever valley you may be traversing, know that it will have a good end. Your faith will ostensibly mature, your spiritual man will ostensibly grow, and you will come to understand the Father in a far deeper fashion than you did before your testing came. This growth is not just a possibility but a promise that you can hold onto in the midst of your trials.

But that’s just an anecdotal conclusion based on personal experience. One may be anecdotal, but if everyone who goes through a trial experiences the same growth once they’ve persevered through it, it’s no longer anecdotal; it’s the expected outcome of something based on the aggregate data available. If everyone who grabs hot coal gets burned, the evidence that hot coal burns isn’t anecdotal any longer but a settled fact.

We do our best to circumvent the reality that God’s ways are to be trusted, not understood, because no one likes being left in the dark and having to guess at why they’re going through their valley of suffering.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Job CV

 Job saw in part, and he understood in part. He had no knowledge of Jesus or what He would ostensibly do in order to redeem mankind and reconcile humanity to God. If in his limited understanding he was able to attain blamelessness and uprightness, we who are privy to the Christ and all He has done for us, we who have limitless resources regarding salvation at our fingertips, we who have the written Word, have no excuse for not pressing in, growing in Him, knowing Him, and being faithful to the end.

If only we could learn patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, love, and self-control from books or workshops. We know what the fruits of the Spirit are, but they are not acquired simply by being aware of them or by some intense concentration exercises. They are birthed in us by the process of daily crucifying the old man and putting to death the deeds of the flesh. It is an exhaustive, often painful process, and not something that happens overnight or without exertion on our part.

It is a war within one’s own mind and heart, wherein we wrench ourselves from the comforts of the status quo and take a step of faith into that new life where Christ is King and Lord over all that we are, all that we do, all that we desire, and all that we pursue. There’s the easy way, then there’s the right way, and the right way isn’t easy, at least as far as the flesh is concerned. Not only are we starving the flesh of the things it previously reveled in, but we are actively mortifying it. The flesh will resist, just as anything that understands the existential nature of the battle raging within will, and if we show the flesh mercy or give it an inch, it will take a mile and drag us back to the dungeon and shackles from which we were set free.

Job 7:11-16, “Therefore I will not restrain my mouth; I will speak with the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul. Am I a sea, or a sea serpent, that You have set a guard over me? When I say, ‘My bed will comfort me, my couch will ease my complaint,’ Then You scare me with dreams and terrify me with visions so that my soul chooses strangling and death rather than my body. I loathe my life; I would not live forever. Let me alone, for my days are but a breath.’”

By this point, Job was no longer addressing Eliphaz; he was addressing God. After months of suffering, his entire outlook had darkened, having come to the point of seeing no reason for living, no hope for redress, and no silver lining in the endless night of his torment. Part of him wanted to restrain his tongue. However, it had come to the point that he needed to speak with the anguish of his spirit, to release the pressure, to verbalize what he had been internalizing for months, and to try to process his current state.

There are those who speak their pain the moment they feel it and those who bottle it up to the point that they feel like they are going to explode. I must confess, I fall in the camp of the latter, not because of any misplaced sense of masculinity or because men shouldn’t cry, but because it’s my nature. You take life as it comes, rejoice when there is no pain, and grit your teeth and press on when there is. There’s something to be said for stoicism in the face of adversity, but everyone has their breaking point, the proverbial straw that breaks the camel’s back even though a camel is sturdy enough to carry supersized Western tourists through the desert without missing a beat.

The danger in bottling up your emotions and pushing down your hurt is that there is a good likelihood of overacting to something insignificant in a wholly unjustified manner because of all the pent-up emotions you’ve been trying to keep caged. When that moment comes, it will likely be toward someone who had nothing to do with the roiling sentiments you’ve been trying to suppress. They’ll just be a convenient outlet and likely undeserving of the flood of emotions they’re about to get drowned in because the dam broke.

Job had been bottling it up for months on end, and with each passing day, his outlook on the future as it related to him as an individual grew ever more stark. Time had taken its toll, and we see Job going from saying shall we indeed accept good things from God and shall we not accept adversity, to saying, I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.

Months had passed, and Job was still in the dark as to why all of this was happening to him. His health wasn’t getting any better, and to top it all off, he was having terrifying dreams and visions he assumed were from God but which were not. Satan had been given free reign over Job, allowed to do his worst except for taking his life, and the dreams and visions that assailed him were another layer in the enemy’s plan to compel Job to relinquish his integrity and surrender his faith.

Just because God allows something, it does not necessarily mean He is the originator of it. By the same token, just because one has a dream or a vision, it does not mean it was God inspired. This is why we must be ever cautious with what we deem revelation, whether in dream form or vision, and take the time to confirm that it was from God and not the product of our own machinations or, worse still, the enemy’s attempt at deception.

The easiest way to know if something did not originate from God is if what was received contravenes or contradicts Scripture. You don’t even have to ask for confirmation or pray for a sign as to whether the dream or vision was from God; you know that it wasn’t because God will neither refute dispute nor undermine His Word.

Far too many, it seems, are so excited about the prospect of being labeled a seer or a prophet that they don’t take the time to apply this all-important litmus test. When they are inevitably called on the carpet for speaking something contrary to the Word, chances are they’ll double down, reject the correction, and imply that their revelation is above Scripture. In such cases, your best course of action isn’t to back away slowly but to run at full speed, as fast and as far as your legs will take you.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Job CIV

 Job 7:6-10, “My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle, and are spent without hope. Oh, remember that my life is a breath! My eye will never again see good. The eye of him who sees me will see me no more; while your eyes are upon me, I shall no longer be. As the cloud disappears and vanishes away, so he who goes down to the grave does not come up. He shall never return to his house, nor shall his place know him anymore.”

In every situation we are confronted with, especially in the arena of faith, we can either focus on the strength of our adversary or the omnipotent power of our defender. That’s not to say we should dismiss our adversary altogether or insist he has no power or ability, but we must juxtapose that reality with the power and ability of the One who stands with us and keeps us from stumbling.

As faithful servants of the one true God, we must strike a balance between understanding that our enemy is real, he seeks to devour and is set on our demise, and the reality that the God we serve is able to sustain us, strengthen us, and give us the wherewithal to come through any situation victorious if only we cling to Him and trust Him to guide our steps.

When we insist that we possess enough strength in and of ourselves to stand against the enemy without God by our side, without His presence and aid, is when we get in trouble, and a seemingly little thing becomes insurmountable because we thought we could overcome it of our own volition rather than by the blood of the Lamb.

The fierceness with which the enemy attacks is meant to stir fear in our hearts. Fear then makes us react contrary to God’s purposes, oftentimes irrationally, and we find ourselves battling against the enemy before us and the fear within us, which blooms and grows like a flame at any gust of wind. The only time fear gets a foothold in our hearts is when we do not look upon a given situation through spiritual eyes but rather through physical ones. In the physical, there will always be situations that seem insurmountable, that seem so overwhelming as to cause us to not even raise our shield or our sword, thinking the battle lost before it’s begun, but in the spiritual, the reality of God’s presence becomes a strength and a reason for courage and boldness.

When Elisha’s servant went out and saw that horses and chariots surrounded the city, fear overtook him, and his reaction was one of trepidation, “Alas, my master! What shall we do?” was his only question, the subtext being that there was no way they could resist the enemy, there was no avenue of escape, and the best course of action would be to surrender, and hope for mercy from the enemy.

Elisha, however, perceived the situation through spiritual eyes, and rather than acquiesce to the fear that was coming off his servant in waves, he prayed that his servant’s eyes might likewise be open so that he could see the situation was not untenable, the battle was not lost, and hope still remained a viable refuge. It wasn’t misplaced hope or wishful thinking; the reality of the horses and chariots of fire around Elisha were real; the servant just didn’t have the eyes to see it.

Once his eyes were opened to the spiritual reality of the moment, and he saw that the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha, the servant understood that it was not they who were in the minority even though they were two men standing against an army.

In moments of trial and testing, it’s easy to forget who’s on our side, and as such, we begin to entertain the idea that all is lost, allowing despondency to settle over us like a wet blanket, smothering our faith in the God we serve. For all of his uprightness and blamelessness, Job had allowed this mindset to divert his gaze from the God he served, and now the only thing he saw was his eventual demise, his death, and the reality that soon he would no longer be.

He considered his lot; he saw the circumstance he was currently in, and the only avenue of escape he saw for himself was the grave. Thankfully, even when we are faithless, He remains faithful because God cannot deny Himself.

We tend to idolize those who came before us, seeing them as more than mere men. Due to the prism through which we see them, we tend to adopt an inferiority complex, thinking we could never achieve similar results as them when it comes to a relationship with God, until we realize they were flesh and blood men and women just like you and me who had their seasons of hardship, desperation, trial, and despondency, only to endure and persevere through them not in their own strength, but by clinging to the One who gives strength.

It’s not that we can’t replicate the faithfulness, tenacity, or intimacy of those who came before us; it’s that most today are unwilling to pay the price in order to acquire these things. The one common denominator of all who came before, who are seen as heroes of the faith, is that they surrendered all to God. There was nothing they held back, nothing they retained control over, no area of their lives they were reticent to surrender that they might know God. If we hold anything back, by definition, we are not fully His.

Philippians 3:7-11, “But what things were gain to me, these things I have counted loss for Christ. 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 and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.”

In his current understanding, Job believed that he who goes down to the grave does not come up. With the advent of Christ, His death, burial, and resurrection, we know that we too may attain what Job deemed impossible, which lends those of this generation, and all the generations that have come and gone since Jesus, a new layer of hope, that we too will one day rise, just as He rose.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Job CIII

 Job 7:1-5, “Is there not a time of hard service for man on earth? Are not his days also like the days of a hired man? Like a servant who earnestly desires the shade and like a hired man who eagerly looks for his wages, so I have been allotted months of futility, and wearisome nights have been appointed to me. When I lie down, I say, “When shall I arise, and the night be ended?” For I have had my fill of tossing till dawn. My flesh is caked with worms and dust; my skin is cracked and breaks out afresh.”

While the destruction of everything he had, including his ten children, came in quick succession, Job’s physical suffering was a long, protracted, and drawn-out thing. We don’t have to guess at it or assume; it’s plainly written in the text, and his ordeal, by this point, had been going on for months. Although the pain of loss may not have been as fresh on his mind these months later, the torment he suffered in the flesh grew incrementally worse, to the point that his flesh was now caked with worms and dust, and his skin cracked and broke out afresh.

The night itself brought no solace. There was no rest, no blissful slumber for a few hours where he could descend into the land of dreams. He tossed till dawn, and the nights were wearisome to him. The length and depth of Job’s suffering are essential to understand for two main reasons. First, it gives weight to his desire to be done with it all, to have a finality to his struggle, and to go back to the dust of the earth. There are times and situations where death is not the worst thing that can happen but rather seen as a grace. I realize that sounds harsh, but having been by the bedside of enough souls who were languishing in abject pain for months on end, I can attest that when the time came for them to shuffle off this mortal coil, they saw it as a blessing.

Just as we have no choice as to when we enter the scene, we have no choice as to when we exit. It’s becoming ever more popular for individuals to decide for themselves the when and how of their exit from this life, but this neither makes it right nor biblical. Even with his flesh caked with worms and dust, his skin breaking out afresh, being unable to sleep, wallowing in misery, and desiring to die, Job never once entertained the thought of doing the deed himself or circumventing the sovereignty of God just because it would put an end to his pain.

The second all-important truth we discover from Job’s travails is that the imagery of our enemy walking about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour is not exaggeration or hyperbole. There is no mercy, sympathy, or kindness in our foe. His heart is not moved by your suffering or mine; rather, he revels in it, hoping that it will be the means by which he can displace our faith and trust in God or sow the seeds of bitterness and despair in our hearts. He is a cruel taskmaster even to those who serve him, for their destruction is assured, and the road to it is paved with untold pain and privation.

I have yet to meet a happy or contented addict. I’ve met quite a few former addicts who were able to leave the shackles of their old life behind and embrace the freedom that is Christ, but as far as those currently surrendered to addiction, not one. Their stories are simultaneously unique and eerily similar. Even if they started on different rungs of the societal ladder, with varying degrees of means at their disposal, they all ended up in the same place, at the bottom, wondering how they’d gotten there, having destroyed their lives, families, livelihoods, and any semblance of joy in the single-minded quest of satisfying their compulsion.

To top it all off, those to whom Job might have looked for comfort turned out to be less than comforting. It’s one thing when strangers let you down, disappoint you, or fall short of your expectations; it’s another when friends do it. It’s a more stringent kind of pain, one that can only be understood when you’re on the receiving end of it, especially when it seems that those you deemed friends turn on you and choose to believe the worst possible explanation rather than reason out the situation based on the prior friendship they had with you.

I’ve always been an introvert. Being a social butterfly has never been in my wheelhouse, and I think that spared me the disillusionment of fake friends for the most part, but I’ve had my share of experiences when it comes to ministry and trusting people who turned out to be untrustworthy, and it stings. I’ve thought about why the sting is so pronounced when the blow comes from one you deemed a friend rather than a stranger, and I believe it’s because while you have to deal with being stabbed in the back, you’re also trying to reason out how you could have been so foolish, how you couldn’t see the telltale signs, and how you allowed yourself to be blindsided so thoroughly.

Job even reminded his friends that he hadn’t sent out telegrams or asked them to visit; he never asked them to bring something to him or deliver him in any matter, and although it’s commendable that they came and sat with him for seven days, their attitude toward their friend and their assertion that he had sinned was pouring salt on an already open, and painful wound.

Those who bear the scars of life have come to understand the truth in Solomon’s musing, that there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother, who will never be absent, indifferent, cold, or callous, who will give wise counsel, and even carry you when you are weary. Lean on Him, trust in Him, and follow Him, for He will lead you in the paths of righteousness and make you to lie down in green pastures.  

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job CII

 Job 6:24-30, “Teach me, and I will hold my tongue; cause me to understand where I have erred. How forceful are right words! But what does your arguing prove? Do you intend to rebuke my words, and the speeches of a desperate one, which are as wind? Yes, you overwhelm the fatherless, and you undermine your friend. Now therefore, be pleased to look at me; for I would never lie to your face. Yield now, let there be no injustice! Yes, concede, my righteousness still stands! Is there injustice on my tongue? Cannot my taste discern the unsavory?”

Some people speak out of ignorance, regurgitating snippets of conversations they overhear or contextually misplaced headlines they read either because they want to seem more intelligent than they are or they’re trying to impress somebody. It’s akin to the meme that’s been floating around where two men are discussing space travel and lamenting the fact that we could never land on the sun because it’s too hot when someone chimes in, “Why don’t we try going when it’s dark?”

A handful of politicians come to mind who seem to be suffering from diarrhea of the mouth, needing to have an opinion about everything, wanting to seem like specialists in every field, only to deliver such vapid word salads as to make them seem poetic. Still, this malady is by no means exclusive to politicians. Many church folk seem to have gotten in on the act, and some of the things their machinations produce are truly a wonder to behold.

Then there are those who speak from a position of knowledge, of having acquired and attained understanding but taking what they’ve acquired and reallocating the original intent to bolster their own positions or prejudices. When the Word tells us that to whom much is given much is required, it runs the gamut to every area of life, including knowledge and understanding.

When Job spoke certain things out of ignorance, God did not hold it against him. When his friends spoke certain things from a position of knowledge, God rebuked and reprimanded them. I see this often with mature believers looking down on baby Christians, expecting them to understand the deeper truths of Scripture from the moment their head breaks the surface of the pool they got baptized in.

If you’re expecting a newborn to run a marathon only to find out they can’t, it’s not the baby’s problem; it’s your problem. Your level of expectation exceeds the baby's ability in its current growth cycle, and try as you might to encourage them, chastise them, and do the whole carrot and stick thing, hoping to get them to start sprinting, it will not work. They are incapable of doing what you expect them to do because they have yet to learn to crawl, never mind run.

Even in his current state, having been accused of sin against God by his closest friends, Job was humble enough to allow for the possibility of a blind spot. He was still teachable and implored his friends to show him the error of his ways if there was one. Teach me, and I will hold my tongue; cause me to understand where I have erred. If you know something I don’t, now’s the time to say it. If you have gleaned something I wasn’t privy to, now’s the time to set me straight. Otherwise, the back and forth and arguing proves nothing. It’s pointless.

Looking back on all my years of ministry, one of the few regrets I have is that I didn’t learn the folly of pointless arguments earlier on in life. If we cannot agree that the Word is the final authority, or if you insist that your feelings supersede the Scriptures, I will kindly bow out of the back and forth and continue on my merry way. I could have banked an extra few months of watching sunsets and sunrises had I been wise enough to learn to disengage from fruitless arguments earlier on in life.

Even though Job’s friends had conceded that his righteousness still stood, their inclination was still to assume he had sinned or done something against the will of God so well hidden that they had not seen it. Rather than pursue the course of Occam's razor theory, wherein, in explaining a thing, no more assumptions need be made than are necessary, Job’s friends had concluded that there was something more to it.

The simplest course of action for Job’s friends would have been to conclude that something they had not yet been confronted with and did not fully understand was happening to their friend. Instead, they layered assumption upon assumption, whereby there needed to be something more than what was evident in his life in order to be brought so low. Rather than take things at face value and acknowledge the potentiality that they didn’t know everything, that this may be the exception that proves the rule, Job’s friends went out of their way to explain his situation through the direst prism afforded them, which is that he had sinned.

Far too often, our self-righteousness and overriding need to be right blinds us to the words Jesus spoke in His sermon on the mount, where He said blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.

You may not be in Job’s position currently, and for this, you should be thankful, but you may well be in the position of one of his three friends, being called upon to show compassion and grace to someone who is suffering. Do not withhold these things, because it just may be your kind words and your compassionate heart that will see them through the valley of trial. The lessons the book of Job teaches us are layered, and depending on who we’re focused on, we can learn what to do and how to react to adversity in our lives, but also how to react toward those who are currently going through adversity.

Yes, there will be those instances when your compassion will be abused and taken for granted, but that’s not on you; that’s on them. There will be times when you pour yourself out for someone, and they turn around and accuse you of not doing nearly enough. Again, that’s not on you, that’s on them. If I give of my time or my resources as unto the Lord, it is the act itself that He rewards, not what the individual to which I showed compassion does with it. I have no control over what others do with the kindness I show. It is, however, within my ability to show kindness, and I must because it is what the Word calls me to do.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Job CI

 The various ways in which God teaches us profound truths should come as no surprise, yet somehow, they still do. For those willing to humble themselves and learn, for those with a teachable spirit, even the most mundane of events in one’s life can have an impact and open our eyes to the undeniable reality that we have not arrived; we don’t know it all, and clinging to Him with all the strength afforded to us is the only means by which we can traverse this life and finish well.

I have what some might construe as a messy closet. I’ve never been a fashionista, so most of my wardrobe consists of t-shirts and shorts, and whenever a load of laundry gets done, I tend to shove them into whatever nook or cranny is available to me.

Since they’re still too young to be left home alone, my wife and I plan our schedules accordingly so one of us is always present. Usually, I give my wife a ten-minute advance notice as to when I’ll be arriving, and her car is already running as I pull into the drive.

Recently, my wife informed me she had a walk-through she couldn’t miss, so I left the office early, got home in time for her to make her appointment, and since it was getting a bit chilly, I went upstairs to rummage through my closet to try and find a sweatshirt, only to find an entire shelf full of my not so fineries on the bedroom floor.

The girls don’t usually get into my things, but as there’s a first time for everything, I called to them, and once they dutifully came, I pointed to the mound of clothes on the floor and asked who’d done it. The synchronicity with which the ‘not me’ chorus began was impressive, and even after I pointed out that they were the only ones in residence, they still denied any culpability. I even went so far as to assure them I wasn’t upset and that there would be no finger-wagging if one of them were to fess up and admit to having ransacked my closet, yet they both continued to insist upon their innocence.

Even though they’re my kids, and I know them as being honest and telling the truth, I still harbored suspicions that either one or both of them had a hand in it, but since it wasn’t something worth pressing them over, I let it go and asked if they’d help me put my clothes back on the shelf, to which they consented.

By the time evening rolled around and we were sitting down to dinner, I’d forgotten all about it until my wife offhandedly said, “I had to go through your closet today. I was looking for a blouse I thought I’d put in there. Sorry about the mess.”

No sooner had my wife finished speaking and I felt eyeballs on me, even though I wasn’t looking in their direction. “Daddy thought we did it,” Malina chimed in, “yeah, we told him we didn’t, but I don’t think he believed us,” Victoria added.

I felt like a slug. They’d told me the truth, and I had no reason not to believe them, yet I’d harbored doubts as to the veracity of their assertions. I apologized to my daughters for assuming something that hadn’t turned out to be true, and I realized how much of a teachable moment that interaction was for me. All pointed to one of them being the culprit, up until my wife added the last piece of the puzzle that clarified the situation.

Jumping to conclusions, especially as to the reason someone is going through a hardship or trial, is likely the worst possible thing we can do when we don’t possess all the relevant information. Job’s three friends had already made up their minds that he had sinned, that he’d done something so foul and odorous as to deserve what was happening to him. Even though Job insisted upon his innocence, his friends would hear none of it.

Until God stepped in and clarified the situation, they lived with the firm conviction that sin was the cause of Job’s troubles, and nothing he said swayed them from their position.

It’s not as though Job didn’t try to convince his friends of his innocence, but once he saw it wasn’t going anywhere, he began to plead his case directly to God. Although Job makes reference to his friends and their remarks and the things they said, Job’s fundamental concern is still God and whether God had anything against him.

If you spend all your time trying to get people to understand you, like you, or be your friend, for the most part, it will be wasted effort with little to show for it. After almost forty years in ministry, I’ve come to realize that the only one whose favor I should garner is God. It’s not a recent realization. It’s something I’ve known for decades now because while men are fickle and inconsistent, God is always there, a present help in times of trouble.

Run to God in your triumphs and defeats. Run to God in your season of plenty as readily as in your season of famine. Run to God when everyone seems to want to be your friend and when the world entire despises you for His name’s sake. Lean on Him, rely on Him, and spend time with Him because prioritizing Him above all else pays eternal dividends.

It may be true that all is vanity in regard to toiling under the sun and laboring to acquire something we can’t take with us to the grave, but it is not the case when it comes to having a relationship with the God of the universe, the Alpha and Omega, the One who formed man from the dust of the earth and breathed life into Him.

Most things aren’t worth pursuing. They’re not worth the time and effort required to acquire them, and only after we’ve toiled and labored, only after we’ve bled and fought and missed out on life, do we realize that the shiny new car is only so until the first rust spot appears, the McMansion we’ve lusted after isn’t spared woodpeckers and hailstorms just because it’s ours, and that new designer brand shirt is just as susceptible to tomato sauce stains as the one you could’ve gotten for a couple of bucks. What remains is what matters, and the only thing that remains once we are gone from this life is whether we knew Jesus as Lord, King, and Savior of our life.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job C

 Other than being mentioned in the book of Job, nothing more is known about his three friends. Given their words and individual approach to Job’s suffering, one can readily discern that these men were not dullards but rather men of great intellect and wisdom. It’s not a stretch to conclude that between the three, the entirety of what has come to be known as philosophy in our modern age was proffered to Job as an explanation for his suffering, concentrated in the handful of words each of them spoke.

Eliphaz was clearly an empiricist, given to utilitarianism, who insisted that all knowledge is based on experience derived from the senses. In his discourse, he constantly pointed out the things he’d seen, heard, and experienced as proof positive that what Job was going through was a direct result of something he’d done to displease God. His conclusions were not based on things he’d read but rather on things he’d seen, and the prism through which he saw Job’s condition was one of empiricism. Eliphaz thought in straightforward lines based on lived experience. If this, then that, and it must be so because all I’ve ever witnessed has confirmed the truth of it.

On the other hand, Bildad is what we can readily define as a traditionalist. He is a man for whom history is of paramount importance because learning from history means never repeating the mistakes of the past in the present. History was his forte, and his insistence upon the things which have been a guiding light for the things which are and which will be is evident in his utterances. Others have come before us, as others will follow, and we have not attained the zenith of wisdom by any means. He calls back to the former age and the things discovered by their fathers as a means of explaining Job’s predicament.

Then there is Zophar the Naamathite, a textbook rationalist if ever there was one, who bases the entirety of his discourse on reason and logic rather than a religious belief or emotional subtext. The prism through which he sees Job’s situation is one of causality because, in his mind, there must be a cause for every effect. To Zophar, there will always be a logical, rational, lucid, and analytical reason for why something is happening at any given moment, and to him, Job was no exception. Due to his predisposition toward rationalism, of Job’s three friends Zophar tried the hardest to convince Job that he had sinned because, in his understanding, he saw no other possibility than this.

When the hubris of man collides with the wisdom of God, there can only ever be one clear winner. It won’t even be close. Whether the philosophies of men or their long-held beliefs, they aren’t even in the running when stacked up against the wisdom of God. There are things men suspect; then there are things God knows. There is the wisdom of man, which is nascent on its best day, and then there is the wisdom of God, which dwarfs the most brilliant mind of any age without even trying.

Insisting that we know the mind of God because we attended junior college and have a piece of paper confirming that we’re biblical scholars of world renown when even one such as Job, whom God considered blameless and upright and who sought to know Him all the days of his life wouldn’t make such a claim calls into question whether our estimation of our own understanding isn’t baselessly inflated.

It’s more difficult by far to convince someone who is sure of their position and who believes they have attained all truth that things are not as they seem to their eyes than it is someone who is genuinely and sincerely seeking after truth. It takes less time to write on a blank slate than it does to clear it of preexisting scribblings so that you can write upon it anew.

Those who’ve already determined they know everything they’ll ever need to know are looking for either confirmation of their preconceived notions or an echo chamber where their opinions are spoken back to them by others of like mind. Such individuals detest the idea of iron sharpening iron or having to defend their position biblically and in any meaningful way.

If history has proven anything, it’s that people can be rooted in a particular belief and be genuine in their assertions yet still be wrong because the litmus test isn’t whether or not notable figures agree with us or a given denomination has given the green light to our machinations, but whether God agrees and consents. The whole world can think you’re right, but if God says you’re wrong, you’re wrong, and there’s no two ways about it.

Although all three of Job’s friends sat on different branches of the philosophical tree and made cogent arguments defending their conclusions, although all three were well-educated men who had more than a passing understanding of deeper truths those of their day likely did not possess, ultimately they were wrong because they neither knew the mind of God nor did they have insight into what was truly going on with Job.

If something you feel certain about is contradicted by the Word, your feelings and certainty matter, not a whit. The Word is the final authority in all manners spiritual, and we must defer to it even if it means swallowing our pride and admitting our errors.

Job’s response to Eliphaz was straightforward enough, insisting that to him who is afflicted, kindness should be shown by his friend, but neither Bildad nor Zophar took the rebuke to heart. I’m hurting over here, and the best you can do is kick dirt in my eye. Perhaps a bit of grace, a bit of kindness, a bit of empathy would be warranted, don’t you think? Nope, you did something; we know you did because that’s the way it’s always been. Cause and effect, buddy, there’s no escaping it. Your suffering is a direct consequence of something you did; you just have to think about it and figure out what it was.

It’s the worst kind of feeling being accused of something you know yourself innocent of, and rather than taking your word for it, the other party doubles down. Through it all, God knows the truth of it, and in His embrace, we find the comfort that may be lacking in friends and family alike.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.