Job CLXXVII

 Awareness of one’s own identity in Christ matters. The full assurance that we are sons and daughters of God keeps us at peace even when chaos reigns all around. It’s those who are not, or who harbor doubt as to whether they are sons and daughters of the Most High, that wither in the face of trials, that lose heart seeing the oncoming storm, and that are ill at ease when the enemy rages.

Therein lies the danger of a superficial faith absent true fellowship, intimacy, and relationship with Christ. Those who have not humbled themselves, repented, picked up their crosses, and followed after Christ are constantly wondering whether they truly are what they claim to be, whether saying a handful of words on a given night is enough to claim sonship, and whether God will answer when they call.

When things are going well, and even when, once in a while, life hands you a lemon, you manage to make lemonade, it’s easy to argue that fence-straddling is a perfectly reasonable option, in which you’re not fully committed to the light nor entirely devoted to the darkness. Never mind that the Word insists that existing between two worlds at odds with each other is impossible. Never mind that Scripture states without equivocation that we cannot serve two masters; we’ve found a workaround, a way of ensuring that the flesh gets what it wants and God gets what we can spare.

All well and good until the music stops, the other shoe drops, and we are faced with a situation that requires divine intervention. It is then that men discover the folly of their way, and that what they’ve told themselves was acceptable in the sight of God turns out not to be.

That Jesus will look upon many who paid Him lip service and conclude He never knew them is not hyperbole or a fear tactic to make us behave. It is a truth that Scripture declares as something sure to occur at some future time when we stand before the great white throne of judgment. The heart of man cannot be Switzerland. It cannot be neutral. It will always belong to one master or the other. Those who have bought into the lie that they can faithfully serve two masters simultaneously have done so because they’ve already chosen which master they will serve, and it is not the God of the Bible.

Had Job not had the relationship with God before his trial commenced, had he not known the goodness of the Lord but only pretended to, he would have given in long ago. There would be no Book of Job, and likely not even a footnote in history as to his existence. Our faith in God, our knowledge of Him, our relationship with Him, and the assurance that He is a good Father carry us through the dark times and difficult seasons of life, while others, without the benefit of knowing God, have long been swept away.

That once we come to the knowledge of truth and are born again, we will nevermore have trials, tribulations, hardships, disappointments, or struggles is a modern-day invention that is an absurd if fanciful lie. It’s not that we will cease to have valleys in life that give us hope and peace; it’s the knowledge that God will be with us every step of the way that buoys our spirits to the point that those observing our hardship question where the strength is coming from.

Job 16:15-22, “I have sewn sackcloth over my skin, and laid my head in the dust. My face is flushed from weeping, and on my eyelids is the shadow of death; although no violence is in my hands, and my prayer is pure. O earth, do not cover my blood, and let my cry have no resting place! Surely even now my witness is in heaven, and my evidence is on high. My friends scorn me; my eyes pour out tears to God. Oh, that one might plead for a man with God, as a man pleads for his neighbor! For when a few years are finished, I shall go the way of no return.”

Just because God is silent, it doesn’t mean He isn’t there. Just because He may seem distant, it doesn’t mean He isn’t present. We try to rationalize why something is happening with our own intellect, refusing to acknowledge that our ways are not His ways and our thoughts are not His thoughts, to the point of doubting His presence in our lives when prayer after prayer goes unanswered and when nothing but our groaning breaks the silence.

Although none of us has been where Job was, we’ve likely felt like he felt at times. Although Job meant it literally, we’ve all had seasons where we metaphorically sewed sackcloth over our skin and laid our heads in the dust. Those moments and seasons where everything is dulled, and nothing holds any flavor, where all you can do is fall on your face before God and cry out to Him. I’ve had situations where my face was flushed from weeping, and my eyes poured out tears to God. If that makes me less spiritual in someone’s eyes, so be it. It shouldn’t, though, at least not if we understand that while He makes the sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust, only those who are His sons and daughters will be welcomed into His kingdom. What is this life compared to eternity? What trials may come, we know our destination, our home, is waiting for us. 

I can neither delude myself nor lie to you and say that if you follow Jesus, every day’s a Friday, and you’ll walk around for the rest of your life with a perpetual grin and glazed-over look in your eyes. That is not what the gospel promises, it is not what God promises, and for anyone to insist it is so is to speak contrary to Scripture.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job CLXXVI

 So you’re saying all I need to do is trust God in everything, all the time? Sounds a bit reductionist. Don’t you think? If I were trying to sell you a course, perhaps. I couldn’t justify charging fifty bucks for a sentence, could I? Thankfully, I’m not trying to sell you anything. I give what I have as a gift, so I don’t have to needlessly complicate a simple principle in order to make myself seem indispensable.

Even when the way is hard, trust God. Even when there is no obvious path forward, trust God. Even when those around you call you a fool, because they have no eyes of faith by which to see what God has shown you, trust God. Trust, like faith, grows, stretches, and expands with each new iteration of God’s faithfulness in your life. It grows and matures, as is the natural cycle of all living things, but unlike all living things, it need not wither, grow old, and die.

Every day, we trust God more. Every day, we build our faith a little more because there is no limit when it comes to these two virtues. Trust and faith do not plateau; they do not peak, and if you find yourself thinking you have less faith and trust in God today than you did yesterday, it is a symptom of a larger issue that must be identified and dealt with.

Men do not run out of faith and trust; they abandon them. Men do not lose faith and trust like a pair of keys or an old wallet; they forfeit these virtues in an attempt to do what only God can do on their own terms. That there were explicit terms and conditions when it came to following Jesus was general and accepted knowledge by the early church, because not only had the disciples heard it from the lips of Christ Himself, they followed through, and walked by faith, submitting to the process of sanctification, and clearly defining what it means to be saved and born again. They did not shrink back from preaching repentance, regeneration, sanctification, faith in Christ, and the picking up of one’s cross.

If the enemy can convince you to trust in the arm of the flesh, or that there can be a material solution for a spiritual problem, the battle is already leaning heavily in his favor. Satan knows that without the authority of God, without His protection, His presence, and His guidance, the best of us are easy pickings, prey huddling by a campfire waiting to be devoured.    

Job 16:10-14, “They gape at me with their mouth, they strike me reproachfully on the cheek, they gather together against me. God has delivered me to the ungodly, and turned me over to the hands of the wicked. I was at ease, but He has shattered me; He also has taken me by my neck, and shaken me to pieces; He has set me up for His target, His archers surround me. He pierces my heart and does not pity; He pours out my gall on the ground. He breaks me with wound upon wound; He runs at me like a warrior.”

Even if Job were to consider placing his hope in friends, family, horses, or chariots, none of these options were available to him. His fortune was gone, his flocks were scattered or stolen, his friends gaped at him with their mouths and verbally struck him reproachfully on his cheek, and to Job it seemed as though God had set Himself against him.

For a man of faith, Job’s biggest fear seemed to have been realized; he concluded that God had delivered him to the ungodly, and turned him over to the hand of the wicked. What hope does a man have when God sets Himself against him? There is nothing he can do, no plans he can hatch up, no paths he can pursue to right his ship because the one who controls the storms is set against him, and just when he gets his head above water, a fresh wave crushes him against the rocks anew.

If not for the grim subject matter, Job could handily have been considered a poet in our day and likely the greatest poet of his day. By his choice of wording, by the interplay between hope and despair, by some of the comparisons he draws in his descriptions, we come to understand that Job was an intelligent man.

Beyond the wisdom that he gained from God and the insights he could glean only from somewhere other than himself, Job was not a simpleton, he wasn’t slow, and he wasn’t dim-witted. By all the things we know of him thus far, and the words he used in response both to his wife, his friends, and in addressing God, we can conclude that he was of above-average intelligence as far as aptitude is concerned.

Why does this matter? It doesn’t, not really, not in the grand scheme of things, but it does take the air out of the blowhards who insist that only the ill-informed, unintelligent, and unmotivated resort to following God. Professing to be wise, they became fools, indeed.

Contrary to the smug, condescending, modern-day dumpster fires that endlessly drone on about how living a life of faithfulness, obedience, and submission is merely a coping mechanism for those who fail at life, knowing God, forming a relationship with Him, and desiring to know more of Him each day is the pinnacle of both intellect and human achievement. Although many a man has tried to leave an indelible mark, strived to be remembered after they were gone by those who forgot them as soon as they returned to the dust of the earth, the handful who walked with God, who lived in obedience to Him, are remembered throughout the generations, never to be forgotten, but more importantly remembered by God Himself.

Does God know you? Do you know Him? Are you His? When you cry out “Abba”, does He address you as son or daughter? These are the things that truly matter in life, no matter the circumstance or situation you may be facing. The world itself is passing away, but he who does the will of God abides forever. 

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job CLXXV

 By the seventh verse, Job was no longer addressing his friends. He’d said all he needed to say to them, calling them miserable comforters, but then there's a tonal shift as Job addresses God himself.

Sometimes, not knowing why we’re going through a season in the valley is as difficult as the journey itself. We oscillate between hope and despondency, whether the news is good or bad, whether the treatment worked or didn’t, and with each extreme, the wind is knocked out of us. Why is this happening to me? It is the cry of many a heart, a cry that becomes a chorus, and even though we may desperately want to know the answer to this all-encompassing question, sometimes we are kept in the dark and not given to understand it.

It is during such times that we must trust in the wisdom, love, faithfulness, and sovereignty of the God we serve and conclude that He knows best, even though we might not see the benefits of it in the moment. Your view will never be as broad or all-encompassing as God’s. That’s just the reality of it. He knows the end from the beginning; we see a few hand spans in front of our own noses. The two cannot compare.

When trust in God is well established, when we don’t simply acknowledge with our lips that He knows best, but believe it in our hearts, then whatever the trial, whatever the hardship, whatever the valley or the cross, we bear it knowing there is a purpose beyond what we can see or perceive.    

It would be nice to know the why of every event in our lives, but much of the time, we are not given that knowledge. Whether it’s because our faith must be tested, or because our trust in God must be matured, God has His reasons, and we must make our peace with it. We know that faith is the substance of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen. If we were given all knowledge of why we are going through a trial, then it would no longer require faith to cling to the promises of God and fully trust that He will make a way.

It’s easier for the flesh to have turn-by-turn instructions when going from one place to another, but sometimes God takes us by the hand and leads us on journeys where His singular purpose is to teach us to trust Him more. If He leads, we must follow, fully assured that He knows the destination and how to get there, fully aware of the hills, valleys, uneven roads, and wilderness we must traverse. He will not cause us to wander endlessly without knowing what we will become during the course of our journey, or without a destination in mind.

The reason some men never see the full measure of the good the trials in their lives produce is that they give up halfway, no longer willing to trust the sovereignty of God but taking it upon themselves to ease their burden or find an easier path. It’s not that He can’t make your journey less trying, it’s Him knowing that not doing so will make you stronger than having done it ever would. It’s about the finished product and becoming a vessel of honor in His hands, not about the refining process we had to go through to get there.

We can resort to the tried-and-true example of pressure turning coal into diamonds, but you already know it, and I don’t enjoy being repetitive. God knows what He is doing. He knows where you need to be in order for Him to use you as He desires to. If the cry of your heart is whatever it takes, then don’t flinch away when He proceeds to do just that.  

Lord, show me your glory! “Gladly,” He answers, “it’s just beyond the season of pruning, sifting, humbling, breaking, transforming, and sanctifying. It is the way, and there is no other.”

There are no fast passes, no way to jump the line or circumvent the purifying required for us as men and women to be able to behold His glory. Because some fail to count the cost as Jesus instructed multiple times, believing the voices that told them it would be easy and that no sacrifice was required, they wither in the furnace of affliction, trial, and tribulation, retreating from the prize they enthusiastically insisted they wanted. Others, understanding the true worth and value of the prize, endure, persevere, and come through stronger, seasoned, tested, and proven.

Purpose and attitude will determine the outcome. Is your purpose fame, riches, and the adulation of men? If so, when affliction comes, your attitude and inclination will be to shrink back, beg it off, and find something easier for the flesh. If, however, your purpose is the excellence of the knowledge of Christ, then whatever is required for you to reach your goal, whether it’s the loss of friends, family, status, or employment, you sacrifice them gladly.

Trials, testing, and affliction have a way of stripping us of the things God finds off-putting — such as performative spirituality, pretense, and pride — peeling the layers one at a time until what remains is something He can work with, mold, and refine. Anyone who thinks they start off as a clean vessel within and without, pristine in every way, and not needing refinement, sanctification, or the infilling of the Holy Spirit is fooling themselves into believing they are more than they know themselves to be. Perhaps it’s a byproduct of the participation trophy generation, or the entitlement mindset that seems to have wormed its way into the household of faith itself, but whatever the reason, the results are dismal, and evident enough for us to question the veracity of the claims some men make wherein they can live as they will, do as they will, walk as they will, and still be used of God.       

If we are given to understand why, then getting through it becomes easier in one respect. It eliminates the constant questions of whether we’ve done something we were unaware of to displease God, and, if so, wondering what it was so we may repent of it. When we are in the dark as to why we are going through a trial, it’s inevitable that at some point along the way, the enemy’s whispers will insist that we’ve been abandoned by the God in whom we put our trust.

Yes, Job was at a low point. Yes, his suffering was beyond what we can imagine, yes, all seemed lost, and even his friends had turned against him, but God had not abandoned Him, just as He will never abandon you or me. Cling to Him, knowing that He will make a way, and His way is perfect.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Job CLXXIV

 Job 16:6-9, “Though I speak, my grief is not relieved; And if I remain silent, how am I eased? But now He has worn me out; you have made desolate all my company. You have shriveled me up, and it is a witness against me; My leanness rises up against me and bears witness to my face. He tears me in His wrath, and hates me; He gnashes at me with His teeth; My adversary sharpens His gaze on me.”

Few feelings in life are more of a gut check than being between a rock and a hard place. It’s like a game of chess where you realize you’re two moves away from checkmate, no matter what move you make going forward. It’s the helplessness, I think, that’s the worst part of it, especially for someone once resilient, in control, a leader of men and head of his household, with the ability to multitask to the point that up until Satan asked to test him, everything was well in hand.

When there is no right move, when there is nothing you can do, and you can’t see a clear path forward, you can choose to fall apart or trust in the captain of your salvation to see you through. We possess more knowledge of God’s promises and assurance that He is faithful, and more examples of Him doing what seemed impossible to man throughout history than Job ever did. We have the canon of scripture, we can run to it in moments of uncertainty, testing, despair, or spiritual attack, but what we lack in our modern era is the sort of relationship Job had with God.

God’s people may be perishing for lack of knowledge, but doubly so for lack of commitment. We may possess more knowledge than those of Job’s day, but evidently not enough to understand that God detests duplicity, hypocrisy, lip service, and fake devotion. We know His standard, we know His Word, but we refuse to live by them, submit to them, and follow after Him.

Luke 12:48, “But he who did not know, yet committed things deserving of stripes, shall be beaten with few. For everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required; and to whom much has been committed, of him they will ask the more.”

Knowledge, in and of itself, is not an exemption from accountability; it is the measure by which we will be held accountable. Do you know that Jesus is Lord, King, and Savior? Do you have faith in Him? Then dedicate your time to that fundamental truth and grow in Him, know Him more, and mature your relationship. You would never reach the limits of Jesus, who He is, how He loves, and what He did on behalf of mankind, were you given a hundred lifetimes, so why get distracted by tertiary matters that hold no spiritual weight?

I encountered Jesus fifteen years ago, but ever since that first encounter, I’ve busied myself with planetary alignments, aliens, the rapture, hand gestures, and their demonic roots, the identity of the man of sin, and whether Jesus takes offense at being addressed as Jesus. Have I had fellowship with Him? Well, no, busy bee and all that. I have conspiracies to unwind and people to warn about accidentally being photographed picking their noses. It’s Illuminati, especially if you pick your left nostril with your right index finger!

Although it wasn’t the case with Job, many today back themselves into a corner, exhaust every option they have at their disposal, come to the point of desperation and ruin before they humble themselves and seek God’s counsel, His guidance, and His instruction.

They know they should stop digging, but they can’t help themselves. All the self-care, the therapists, therapies, mantras, and motivational quotes haven’t worked thus far, so they double down and keep doing what has been proven not to work in the hope that, for some unexplained reason, tomorrow it will.

While my wife is brilliant in most areas of life —excelling at her job, taking care of the girls, and managing the homestead —her one blind spot is her car. I hadn’t ridden with her in some time, and one morning we decided to go to breakfast as a family and take her car. As we petered down the highway, I started hearing a banging and clanging whenever I turned the wheel. When I asked her if she’d noticed it, she said, Yes, it’s been making that noise for some time, but I just thought it would go away on its own.

I know this woman. She is an intelligent, rational human being, so it was hard for me to reconcile her words with who I knew her to be. “You know those noises don’t just go away on their own”, I said, “and if it’s getting worse, it will just keep getting worse until you call me from the side or the road one day asking if I’m in the area so I can come pick you up.”

You can’t keep doing what doesn’t work and expect it to work one day. You can’t ignore patterns you’ve developed in your life that consistently rob you of joy, peace, and fellowship with God, hoping that one day, out of the blue, the ship will right itself and you will shake off the slumber.

If every time you interact with strangers on the interwebs and a friendly debate turns into a war of words, rather than hoping that men’s nature will one day change and they will react wisely when their theories are confronted, step away. Take that time you would have spent checking your pulse because you’re starting to feel lightheaded and your cheeks are flushed, and be alone with God. Go before Him in prayer. Ask Him for wisdom and a greater measure of self-control. Don’t keep doing the thing that robs you of peace, expecting that one day peace will flow like a river.

That’s not the way it works. You may want it to work; someone may have told you it does, there may even be testimonies online of people swearing by it, insisting that it was the breakthrough it needed, but the proof is in the pudding, and if what was supposed to bring you peace robs you of it, what was supposed to bring you joy takes it away, the longer you put off making a change the worse it will get.

This was precisely where Job was, as he’d concluded that though he spoke, his grief was not relieved, and if he remained silent, it would not do a thing to ease his suffering either. Either way, the hurt would remain, but at least he could try to convince his friends of the truth while he waited to die.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Job CLXXIII

 What provokes you that you answer? Other than calling his friends miserable comforters, the seemingly innocuous question stood out in the text because it’s one we could each ask ourselves over and over again. It’s not a question that felt directed at Eliphaz or his other two friends, exclusive to them and not at all relatable in any other context, but a question that could have been directed at each of us in turn.

In any given situation, what provokes you that you answer? Whether someone is heaping praise upon you or reacts negatively to you, whether they speak well of you or ill of you, what provokes you to answer? Whether you feel you’ve been slighted, wronged, ignored, or maligned, what provokes you to answer? If we could answer that singular question before we open our mouths to speak, if we could be honest with ourselves about ourselves, what motivates us and when, we would be the cause of more smiles and fewer tears as we journey through this life.

Whether it’s the unction of the Holy Spirit, righteous anger, pride, ego, or the flesh, identifying what provokes us to answer in the manner we do will allow for us to know when we should speak and when we should keep silent; when we should give our two cents, or keep them to ourselves and add them to the other hundred dollars in pennies we’ve been collecting.

Not every thought is worth verbalizing, not every opinion is worth disseminating, and when we know the difference between divinely inspired utterances and those produced by the flesh, by ego, by pride, by jealousy, resentment, sanctimony, or self-righteousness, we will know when to bite our tongue and keep silent, and when to speak because it is necessary and timely.

Hindsight is a powerful teacher if we are willing to learn. Each of us has had those moments of epiphany when, looking back, we would have chosen to keep silent rather than speak, or, conversely, to speak up when we kept silent. We can’t change the past, but we can learn from it. This is how we grow and mature, ensuring that the words we speak are seasoned and echo the heart of God rather than our own ruminations.   

We’ve gone from insisting that we should be sober-minded, pursuing wisdom, and understanding the God we serve on a deeper level, to the notion that there’s no such thing as a dumb question, a bad opinion, and nothing we could ever say could be counter-productive because it’s we who said it, and only wisdom doth flow forth from our lips, does it not? It’s a self-serving, self-aggrandizing mindset that feeds the flesh to no end, and the instinct and desire to have an opinion on things we know nothing about becomes overwhelming because the possibility that it may inflate our pride and self-esteem is too tempting.

Whether crime scene investigation, geo-politics, bullet trajectories, or the date upon which Christ will appear in the heavens, there is no limit to the things some people claim to be specialists in at the drop of a hat, even though the closest they’ve been to a crime scene was the fallout from the Taco Bell meal they scarfed down while driving home the previous night.

Given that Job asked what provoked his friends to answer rather than whom, it’s clear that he was unaware of the conversations between Satan and God, or the level to which his friends were being influenced by the enemy. He’d concluded it must have been some emotion that provoked his friends to answer, whether unacknowledged resentment of him having been so favored in the sight of God, or vindication of their supposition that no one could be blameless and upright in the sight of God.

We knew it; we knew it all along. At least some of your faithfulness, integrity, worship, relationship, and fellowship with God were feigned. You were putting on airs. You wanted people to see you as something more than you were, and now God has finally had enough!

In Job’s case, he knew that if he could understand the what, he would understand the why. It’s one thing to be berated by friends and family for having done something foolish. It’s another to be berated by friends and family for something you haven’t done, and you know yourself to be innocent of.

What provokes you that you answer? Are you provoked by the desire to defend the truth or yourself? Are you provoked by the desire to defend Christ or a denomination? Are you more animated and vocal in defending the inerrancy of scripture than you are in defending a personal preference that scripture is not declarative and explicit on? If not, why not? What provokes you that you answer?

We know what happens when we get in the flesh and go to war over trivial matters while ignoring the crucial ones. There have been church splits, the breaking of fellowship, and denunciations by half of a congregation insisting that they were Ichabod over something as trivial as instruments during worship or the wearing of wedding bands by married couples. Just as small foxes destroy the vine, minor disagreements lead to chaos and destruction because those who should have asked what provoked them to take a hard line on such a tertiary matter did not.

If your soul were in my soul’s place, I, too, could be cold, callous, glib, judgmental, self-righteous, sanctimonious, accusatory, and self-serving, but knowing myself, I know I wouldn’t be any of those things. Instead, I would strengthen you with my mouth, and the comfort of my lips would relieve your grief. It’s not that I couldn’t be as hurtful as you have been; I would choose not to be, building up rather than tearing down, being a comfort rather than a source of pain and despondency.

The words I would speak would comfort you and relieve your grief rather than add to it, because I am your friend and possess brotherly love in my heart for you. One would think that such an answer would embarrass Job’s friends or cause them to pump the brakes on their vitriolic accusations. One would think it would prompt introspection or at least enough self-awareness to make them acknowledge that they had not been the kind of friends they could have been. Alas, as far as they were concerned, it was too late for all that.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Job CLXXII

 Job 16:1-5, “Then Job answered and said: ‘I have heard many such things; Miserable comforters are you all! Shall words of wind have an end? Or what provokes you that you answer? I also could speak as you do, if your soul were in my soul’s place. I could heap up words against you, and shake my head at you; But I would strengthen you with my mouth, and the comfort of my lips would relieve your grief.”’

If you weren’t heartbroken up until this point, Job’s answer to his friends should get you across the finish line handily. Yes, I know how the story ends; I’ve read Job at least two dozen times from start to finish, and have been meditating on it for the better part of two years as we go through this study, but even so, as I began to contemplate the first five verses of this chapter, my heart ached.

It was evident to Job’s friends that his health was deteriorating, his grief had not abated, and his will to live had drained to the point of nonexistence, yet they would not relent. Once Eliphaz was done trying to convince Job that he had sinned, that he must have sinned, otherwise he wouldn’t be in the situation he was in, it was Job’s turn to answer his friends anew, and given that they had been going back and forth for some time Job reminded them that he hadn’t heard anything new coming from their lips, but retreads of their initial arguments.

Just because you say the same thing in slightly different ways, it doesn’t mean your initial thesis has changed, or that you realized you’d been barking up the wrong tree. It’s something politicians are fond of doing nowadays, where they try to word salad you into changing your position, even though no new evidence as to the veracity of their statements has been brought forth.

Satan had thrown everything, including the kitchen sink, at Job, and he still held fast to his integrity. His grip might have been weakening, his energy long past spent, but no matter how many times he was encouraged to pack it in, to give up the ghost, to admit to fault, curse God and die, he held firm.

Such integrity does not appear out of the ether; it doesn’t materialize instantaneously, but is nurtured and matured over time. Job had walked with God all of his life, and with each passing day, his relationship with Him deepened, his trust of Him grew, and his faith in Him matured.

Everything you’ve said I’ve already heard. All the insinuations, outright accusations, are nothing new to me, and though initially your purpose was to comfort me, you’ve turned out to be miserable comforters indeed. It’s better to be no comforter at all than to be a miserable comforter. A miserable comforter does nothing to take away from the pain you’re feeling, but adds to it, intensifies it, and fans it. It may not be their stated intent, it may not be what they desired to do at the outset, but it’s what they end up doing nonetheless.

It’s the difference between bandaging a wound and poking at it to see if it bleeds. It’s the difference between putting salve on a burn and rubbing sandpaper on it. Miserable comforters do more harm than good, doubly so when they are egged on by an external force or their pride is in play. For Eliphaz, it had been both, and they combined into a perfect storm of accusation and degradation targeting a man he called his friend.

The ego is hard to kill. It takes a concerted effort and a willingness to do away with the pride of life, the ever-present unrealistically high appreciation of oneself, and the need to be seen by others in a certain light. The interplay between these three is ongoing, with each having its own moments of dominance, its own season in the sun depending on the situation. Whether the mindset that we are entitled to the blessings with which we are bestowed, many of which we don’t even acknowledge, the notion that some calling is beneath us because we’re wasting our potential and we can achieve so much more, or the desire to be admired by one’s contemporaries, the root of all these is the ego.

We often speak of crucifying the flesh and do it so flippantly, waving it off as if it were some small thing, that many have gotten it into their heads that it's easy. An inconvenience at most. Something you can get squared away between breakfast and lunch.

You are trying to mortify something that wants to live and does not want to die. Your stated purpose is to nail to a cross the habits, vices, thoughts, actions, and addictions you’ve been a slave to since you can remember, and the only life your flesh has ever known. There is bound to be resistance, there is bound to be opposition, and everything in you will do its utmost to keep the flesh from dying. Your intellect will betray you, your heart will betray you, your feelings will betray you, your self-control will betray you, all in service of keeping the flesh alive. This is why deliverance must come from outside of oneself. Jesus saves us. We don’t save ourselves. If anything, Jesus saves us from ourselves.

From a purely psychological vantage point, the dynamics of three against one likely came into play during the back and forth between Job and his friends, because if one of them broke ranks and did not pepper Job with slings and arrows, the other two may have felt slighted or betrayed.

I don’t believe Job was insinuating that he was a better man than all three combined when he told his friends that, were they in his place and he in theirs, he would not have been so callous as they. I do believe the man had enough time to reflect on his situation, their words, and imagine what it would be like to walk a mile in their shoes, and concluded that his principles, convictions, and affection he held for his friends would not allow him to be so brutal as they had been. It wasn’t pride influencing Job to say he would have been a better friend. By this point, there was not an ounce of pride in him if ever there had been any. It was an objective surety based on honest introspection: Job knew he would have chosen to be a better friend to them than they had been to him. 

You can choose to be a better friend. You can choose to be a better brother. You can choose to be a better sister, father, son, daughter, mother, or neighbor. Man is an amalgam of the choices he makes over time. Freedom of choice, however, does not mean freedom from the responsibility of the consequences of said choices. As such, choose wisely!

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job CLXXI

 With all the things Job’s friends thought they knew, were sure of, and insisted upon, there was one thing that eluded them, the most critical and consequential thing of all: Job loved God! Truly, deeply, completely, without equivocation or shadow of turning, Job loved God. Because Job loved God, he was known by Him, and He was neither unaware nor unconcerned about him as an individual.

Just as Paul wrote to the Corinthians, Job’s friends were puffed up with the knowledge they thought they possessed, having abandoned love, not understanding that love edifies.

1 Corinthians 8:2-3, “And if anyone thinks that he knows anything, he knows nothing yet as he ought to know. But if anyone loves God, this one is known by Him.”

We don’t know what we don’t know, and half the time the things we know are not as we ought to know them, but that doesn’t stop us from giving our take, our opinion, our interpretation, and perhaps worst of all, sharing our feelings on topics and situations we do not possess complete knowledge of.

Tragically, our feelings never play second fiddle; they never take second place, and if we make our feelings our guiding light rather than the inerrant Word of God, we will always find a way to circumvent it, downplay it, and insist that, for whatever reason, our feelings matter more than what the Word of God says.

Trying to convince believers of what Jesus said, and that we should take it seriously, be sober, and prepare for the events He forewarned of, is like pulling teeth with a pair of rusty tongs, because their feelings supersede the authority of Scripture and as such, they’ve convinced themselves that willing a different outcome to what has already been spoken in the Word is enough to make it so.

Back in the day, the buzz phrases were “I don’t receive that” or “it doesn’t bear witness with my spirit”, even though all you did was quote Scripture verbatim and point to it and what it says about the last days. Whether you receive it or not is entirely up to you, but know that your feelings on a particular matter will not invalidate scripture.

Hubris has a way of making us so myopic as to conclude that we are the only ones that can be right about something, even if it’s at the expense of what the Scripture clearly says, or what the evidence before us clearly shows. Don’t let hubris cloud your judgment or make you see something that isn’t there. Once you go down that road, the tendency to double down even when all evidence proves contradictory to your presumption is almost overwhelming.

When we’re unwilling to admit we were wrong about something or someone, even when proven so, we begin to rationalize and insist that we may not have gotten all the details right, but surely there must be something nefarious beneath the surface—anything except the simplest explanation that we were wrong and mistaken. 

Eliphaz could not allow for the possibility that he was wrong or that he had misread the situation. It was anathema to him, and in his mind, the more examples he came up with, the stronger his case against Job became. What started out as an attempt to comfort a suffering friend transformed into layers upon layers of accusations against him because, were he to admit he was wrong, Eliphaz’s pride would have been wounded.

To kick someone when they’re down, to hurt someone already hurting to appease our pride, is a special kind of wrong, yet we see people do it constantly, because to them, their pride is the driving force of what they do in life.

Their need to be right supersedes both empathy and humanity, and somehow they find a way to make it about themselves rather than the individual in question. I know you’ve lost everything and you’re sitting in an ash pile praying for death, but I’ve been sitting on the stony ground for a week, and it’s not helping my sciatica, so can we just get on with it, admit that you sinned, and we can go on our merry way?

When everything is reduced to the natural and we do not allow for the supernatural in our lives, then every answer to every question we have must necessarily be tethered to the natural. Eliphaz, for all his insistence that he was wise and that his gray hairs were evidence of his claims, did not allow for anything beyond what he could see, touch, hear, and deduce with his carnal mind. There was nothing beyond the physical that could be seen, or a spiritual prism through which he could view Job’s plight and conclude something other than what he’d already concluded.

I see a broken man before me, a man who was once the greatest of all the people of the East, and the only explanation is that he must have sinned. He must have done something to stir God’s anger against him, because if not for God being against you, there’s no way to lose everything, including your ten children, so suddenly. Ergo, Job sinned, and my singular purpose is to convince him to cop to it, confess his faults, admit his heinous acts, and once he does that, I will have been proven to be right.

Sure, he says he’s innocent, but every guilty person says they’re innocent, don’t they? Sure, he’s lying in the dirt, scratching at his boils, gasping for breath, and if not for his evident sin, I would have more empathy for him.

By this point, Eliphaz had worked himself up into a lather, so convinced of Job’s sin as to grow angry and frustrated every time Job insisted upon his innocence. If only Eliphaz could have seen how this drama would play out and what God’s response to him and his friends would be to their verbal berating and accusations of Job, perhaps he would have been less inclined to be so vitriolic. Alas, only God knows the end from the beginning, only He is privy to all the nuances of one’s existence, and only He is the final arbiter and judge.  

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job CLXX

 There is wisdom that is passed down from generation to generation, and then there is wisdom that comes from above. The wisdom passed down by word of mouth, although useful in some cases, like how to start a fire with two sticks and some kindling, how to sharpen stones to make a spear, or how to age a piece of wood to make a bow, is no substitute for the wisdom that God pours into the hearts and minds of those who seek after Him.

Eliphaz was repeating what he’d heard from his forefathers, from the generations that came before him, insisting that it was the only wisdom available to man, the only game in town, and the singularly accessible guiding principle. It was an earthly wisdom without gentleness, unwilling to yield, and absent mercy, and no matter how much his words battered Job’s resolve, it seems as though Eliphaz didn’t much care. There is a callousness to earthly wisdom that is not found in godly wisdom.

While some wisdom passed down through the generations is worth knowing, countless things deemed the height of wisdom at some point in time should be discarded and serve as cautionary tales. In hindsight, the same people responsible for building the pyramids were a bit off when practicing bleeding of sick patients, in the hope of making them well. While the mechanics of how one of the most impressive feats humanity has undertaken have been lost to time, bloodletting was a thing until a couple of hundred years ago. Just because an idea or practice has persisted from one generation to the next, it doesn’t validate its usefulness.

James 3:17-18, “But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy. Now the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.”

Not all wisdom is the same. There is the wisdom of man, then there is the wisdom that is from above. All wisdom is not the same. The Word differentiates between the two and insists that although the labels are the same, generally speaking, the contents are quite different.

Godly wisdom, or wisdom from above, has qualifiers. It is pure, peaceable, gentle, and willing to yield. It is not implacable, corrupted, antagonistic, or abrasive. Godly wisdom is also absent from partiality and without hypocrisy. If in the sharing of their wisdom you discover someone has an ulterior motive or a vested interest, back away slowly, turn around, and run.

It’s one of the topics my wife and I have had multiple discussions about. Whenever she happens upon some expert who insists that everything you consume is trying to kill you, my first question to her is, “What are they trying to sell you?”

If you’ve ever drunk from a plastic bottle, eaten with a plastic fork, put a plastic bag over your head to keep from getting rained on, touched plastic in any form, held food in Tupperware, or bought bread in a plastic bag, you’re as good as dead, buddy! All those microplastics are forming a helmet around your brain, and once it’s complete, it’s lights out! Thankfully, we have a product that will purge all those nasty microplastics from your body, and you can live forever as long as you pony up the hundred bucks a month to keep your system clean.

There may be some truth to the theory, but by their offering a product in exchange for legal tender to remedy it, I grow skeptical. The wisdom is neither pure nor free from partiality. What’s worse is that they use fear as a fulcrum to sway people into buying their product.

It’s not a new thing or something this current generation has happened upon. Fear has been used as an incentive for as long as men have roamed the earth. We’ve gotten better at it in our modern age; we’ve streamlined the process and discovered new ways of sowing fear into the hearts of men, but as the idea itself is concerned, it’s neither new nor groundbreaking.

Chaos and uncertainty breed fear; fear is disquieting, uncomfortable, unnatural, and dispiriting, so if we can create a product to mitigate the fear men feel, we’ll have a consistent customer base that we can fleece time and time again until the end of time. Voila, shelf-stable gruel in a bucket that you too can buy to keep your family fed, sheltered, and free from fear. They fail to mention that once you open the bucket and the smell hits you, you’ll take your chances with starvation, but money has already exchanged hands, the deal was done, and now you’re stuck with buckets full of stuff that looks like it's already gone through someone’s digestive tract.

There are nine billion of us on this rock and counting, every one has an appointed time, and nothing we can do, whether take fistfuls of pills, go to sweat lodges, eat kale, buy copious amounts of buckets of gruel, or abstain from fried foods, will extend our time on earth by one second longer than God has determined. Should you strive to take care of yourself, discipline your body, and be aware of what you consume? Most assuredly, but if that becomes the overarching purpose of your existence, and turns into a de facto religion where you spend more time weighing six ounces of chicken breast four times a day than you do praying, perhaps it's time to reassess priorities and understand that this life is fleeting, destined to end, but eternity is forever.

You can spend all your days ensuring you’ll make a pretty corpse, obsessing over every tidbit, fearful of things you have no way of controlling, or growing in God, in the knowledge of Him, building up your most holy faith, and strengthening your spiritual man.

The notion that one can perfectly balance the two, wherein we offer each equal time and prominence, is foolhardy and impossible, for one will always war against the other. The heart of man has but one throne, and there is only room for one singularity therein. Either the flesh resides on the throne of your heart, or God does. There is no shared custody, and a divided heart, like a house divided against itself, will not stand.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Job CLXIX

 Job 15:27-35, “Though he has covered his face with fatness, and made his waist heavy with fat, he dwells in desolate cities, in houses which no one inhabits, which are destined to become ruins. He will not be rich, nor will his wealth continue, nor will his possession overspread the earth. He will not depart from darkness; the flame will dry out his branches, and by the breath of His mouth he will go away. Let him not trust in futile things, deceiving himself, for futility is his reward. It will be accomplished before his time, and his branch will not be green. He will shake off his unripe grape like a vine, and cast off his blossom like an olive tree. For the company of hypocrites will be barren, and fire will consume the tents of bribery. They conceive trouble and bring forth futility; their womb prepares deceit.”

What Eliphaz was saying, generally speaking, was not so far off the mark. Yes, people who only focus on themselves, on their possessions, and the accumulation thereof, are shortsighted and soon come to ruin. Eventually, they will dwell in desolate cities that no one inhabits because those who can venture forth to find better bosses, better wages, and better hours do so.

In some countries, it’s gotten so bad that it’s been classified as an epidemic. Romania, my country of birth, is a perfect case study. The few jobs that do exist pay next to nothing; the young and able-bodied have no choice but to leave in search of a better future, and once-thriving communities are reduced to a handful of elderly souls trying to survive, and those who didn’t have the means or courage to venture forth.

We earn our daily bread with the sweat of our brow. Whether that entails swinging a hammer, running a mower, emptying a bin, milking a cow, plucking a chicken, working a grill, or trying not to fall asleep behind the counter at your local sip-n-go because you’re stuck on third shift for the third day straight, we all must earn our daily bread somehow.

Very few people have the grace to love what they do. Most see their jobs as a necessary evil, something that must be drudged through and endured, and doubly so when the person in charge isn’t of noble character, or is so obtuse as to believe that if you mistreat a good employee, they’ll continue to perform optimally until the day they get the Walmart sheet cake and a thank you for your service speech thirty years hence.

It’s always refreshing to run across someone who genuinely enjoys being where they are, as far as employment is concerned. Whether a waitress who has been serving drinks and greasy breakfasts since the diner had hitching posts out front, or the young, fresh-faced microwave engineer who offers to make you an on-the-spot gas station grilled cheese because the one that’s out has been there since the weekend, it’s nice to see someone enthusiastic about their job. Usually, the fact that they are being treated well in whatever capacity they are employed goes a long way to keeping the individual content and excited about performing their current tasks.

Treat people how you’d like to be treated, doubly so if it’s someone working for you or in your business. The small, the insecure, those with a chip on their shoulder and a need to prove their dominance will berate, talk down to, and abuse those under them consistently, and with not an ounce of mercy. The bottom line is the only thing that matters, and although Eliphaz was mistaken in insinuating Job was such a man, who was only concerned about himself, his wealth, and his well-being, the overall tenor of his discourse is both reasonable and worth taking to heart.

Although Solomon was more succinct when he said, “vanity of vanities all is vanity”, as was Jesus when He asked, “What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his soul?”, Eliphaz was more verbose in his oratory, while reaching the same conclusion.

Everything men build is destined to become ruins. The only question is how long it will take for it to occur. Men have built palaces, temples, statues, castles, and monuments all in the hope that they will be remembered, that their name will outlive them, and unless they were remarkable in some form or fashion beyond the monuments they built, their names are long forgotten and their monuments long abandoned.

There are two absolute realities which no man can circumvent: Nothing built by the hands of man lasts forever, and no matter how much one squirrels away, you can’t take any of it with you when it’s time to shuffle off this mortal coil.

Even so, men have tried —and try to this day — to leave a lasting legacy, usually by way of some monument or statue, or by having their name on the wing of a building, but, given enough time, try as they might, a handful of generations hence, they are remembered no more.

Thankfully, there are those — perhaps a handful in every generation — who understand that, though history may forget their names, eternity never will. As such, their focus isn’t on building edifices of brick and mortar, but on sowing in the lives of others, being kind and charitable, and understanding that there is a life beyond this present one, and that it is toward that next life we all travel with each breath that leaves our lungs.

What that looks like depends on the individual. Whether they teach, mentor, counsel, lead by example, or provide a hot meal for a family in need, there are countless ways to practice selflessness if we are so inclined. Sometimes the giving of one’s time is more precious to someone than any amount of money could ever be, whether it’s a shoulder to cry on, someone to confide in, or simply being present to ensure the individual in question that they are not alone.

Something as seemingly insignificant to anyone save for the person in question, as reading a book or the Bible to one who is bedridden or in a retirement home, will be remembered long after the gaudy lion statues at the end of your drive will have been bulldozed and razed.

I’ve never seen anyone’s face light up the way a group of retirees did when the music teacher my daughter goes to decided to put on a concert for them. They weren’t master cellists or violinists; a couple of them missed a note or five, but every face in attendance had a broad smile on their countenance, and seemed enraptured at the sight of elementary school-aged children playing instruments before them. Kindness, in whatever form or iteration, pays dividends.  

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job CLXVIII

 Assumptions are easy to make. Even when we are unaware of it, we assume certain things with such regularity as to become habitual in practice. Some assumptions are anchored in reality; others are based on presuppositions or previous experiences, but there is a danger of falling into a pattern of assuming something about someone without giving them a chance or the benefit of the doubt.

Especially nowadays, when everyone is trying to project an image of some sort and plaster it all over the interwebs to convince others of how rich, happy, famous, or popular they are, it’s good to remember that all that glitters isn’t gold, and just because someone got a photo of themselves standing next to a supercar it doesn’t mean its theirs.

The same goes for men or women who insist upon calling themselves by some title meant to elicit a specific response from those within earshot. Whether they call themselves a prophet, a bishop, an elder, a deacon, an apostle, or a healer, those who are faking it until they make it hope no one bothers to inspect their fruit and see if any exist.

 Did you hear? So and so is a prophet! Says who? Well, they said. They’ve been calling themselves one every time they’re out in public, and even put it on their business card. Have they yet to give an accurate word of prophecy? Well, no. Are they living their lives according to scripture and pointing to Jesus rather than themselves? Not yet. Then maybe we should hold off on the accolades and calling them by their preferred title just to humor them.

Every situation or circumstance is unique, just as every individual is unique. As such, just because you knew of someone in a similar predicament who turned out to be less noble than they pretended, it doesn’t mean the next time the outcome will be the same. Job’s friends were filtering his situation through the prism of presupposition without any evidence to support their conclusions. All that they had been to each other, the friendship, the camaraderie, the history they shared, and the unwavering character of their friend became of no consequence to them. He must have done something; now we just have to figure out what.     

Developing a one-track mind in which we see one thing the same way, always, without variation, or that we refuse to allow for the possibility of an underlying mystery we are unaware of or privy to, is something we should all be wary of. In Job’s case, his protracted suffering was deemed as incontrovertible evidence to his friends that he had sinned, displeased God, and done something so horrific as to consider his current lot as mercy. Without a shred of evidence to substantiate their claims, all three of Job’s friends deemed him a man deserving of far worse than he was getting.

 Assumptions are commonplace, and if we use an extra-large paint roller when a detail brush is the appropriate tool, we tend to see things that aren’t there or miss the obvious details that should stand out. It’s far easier — and takes less time — to generalize about someone or something than to gather all the facts and consider the nuanced nature of everyone’s life. If you’re poor, it’s because you’re frivolous with your money! Perhaps it’s true for some, but if you’re banking seven bucks an hour and have two kids to feed, it’s not frivolity that’s keeping you poor; it’s the lack of income. I don’t care how far you stretch it, seven bucks an hour is seven bucks an hour, and that’s before the tax man comes knocking to get his share.

The older I get, the less inclined I am to assume anything about anyone. I’m not referring to someone in blatant, obvious, habitual, and unrepentant sin, one who is disseminating false doctrine, or somebody who got caught with their hand in the cookie jar with cookie crumbs in their beard, but those who are going through trials, hardships, and testing while their faith remains steadfast, and their integrity intact. In such situations, our first instinct ought not to be to wonder what they’d done to merit such a lot, then conclude they must have done something, especially if they are close, whether friends, family, or brothers and sisters in the Lord.

The words of men, either for good or ill, neither legitimize nor delegitimize you. The words of men hold no power over you unless you allow it. Some grow so elated at the praises of men that their purpose is no longer to preach the truth, but to preach in such a manner as to elicit more praise. Conversely, some are so afraid of men’s reprisal, their harsh retorts, or angry declarations, that they will couch and massage the message of the cross, hoping it softens the blow and keeps those who would otherwise react with vitriol from doing so.    

The only opinion that matters is God’s, and how He views you, how He sees you, and whether He calls you a son or daughter. Especially nowadays, men put a lot of stock in other people’s opinions, whether of themselves, the Bible, Christianity, or Christ. Did you hear? So-and-so is going to church! So and so spoke of Jesus in a positive light! I understand the excitement some might feel at the thought that one individual’s conversion or positive view of Jesus might compel others who were disinclined to hear about Him to do so, but lest we forget, He draws men unto Himself. Anything less than that reality is short-lived and not transformative.

Intellectual acknowledgment of God, or recognition of Jesus as a real person, historically documented, and proven to have existed beyond a shadow of doubt, does not translate to being born again and becoming a new creation in Him. It is faith that transforms. Faith in the reality of Scripture that Jesus, the Son of God, died on a cross and rose again on the third day. Faith that He made a way for mankind to be reconciled to God the Father, and through faith grants the faithful eternal life with Him.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job CLXVII

 Those who do not believe that, given enough pressure for a long enough time, innocent people will confess to things they haven’t done just to make the pain stop, have never been tortured, or suffered privation in the true sense of the word. In the words of a former bone breaker from the old country, “my job was to get a confession; their guilt or innocence never entered the equation.” This man was referring to Christians he’d abused on orders during the Communist regime that spread across the whole of Romania like a blanket.

That Job had gone through all he’d gone through thus far with his integrity intact says more about his character, determination, faith, integrity, and steadfastness than an encyclopedic tome ever could. He’d buried ten children, lost his substantial earthly possessions, fallen ill, was encouraged by his wife to curse God and die, and now the three friends who had come to comfort him were each taking turns berating him, insisting that not only had he sinned, but had done it so egregiously as to deserve everything that had, and was happening to him.

They took turns, each seemingly trying to outdo the other in their accusations, and though they attempted to couch it in the idea that they were just speaking the truth or passing on wisdom they’d learned from their fathers, there was no encouragement or comfort in their words but an endless onslaught whose primary purpose was to compel Job to relent, give up, and abandon his faith in the God he’d served all these years.

This was an engineered attack, and it was not Job’s friends who’d come up with the plan. They were just the vehicle by which the plan was being implemented. We know God uses people, but so does the enemy. While God uses men and women to further His kingdom and shine the light of truth in a world of darkness, to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and care for the widow and orphan, the enemy uses individuals to destroy all that is noble, decent, and good. He uses anyone he can to dispirit those seeking to follow after God, to sow doubt in their hearts, and convince them to abandon hope.

Satan had tried using Job’s wife, and that hadn’t worked. Bildad had taken a swing and missed as had Zophar, and now the enemy’s hope rested on Eliphaz to bring it home and convince Job that he had sinned before God.

Job 15:23-26, “He wanders about for bread, saying, ‘Where is it?’ He knows that a day of darkness is ready at his hand. Trouble and anguish make him afraid; they overpower him, like a king ready for battle. For he stretches out his hand against God, and acts defiantly against the Almighty, running stubbornly against Him with his strong, embossed shield.”

Couple the length of Eliphaz’s pontification with the average attention span, and one would be remiss in not asking who he was referring to and who exactly these descriptions are about. Eliphaz was describing a wicked man, checking off one box after another, and since to him correlation and causation were interchangeable, with each new trait he outlined, he was that much more certain of Job’s guilt and culpability.

It’s no less than hubristic to look at a man’s current lot in life and conclude what has brought him to that place, insisting that the journey to get to where he is can’t be anything other than what you’ve decided. Doubly so if that man happened to be your friend, someone whose character and faithfulness you were aware of, and not a passing stranger or a beggar hoping for alms.

Every life has a story to tell, every life holds surprises, and if you make up your mind about someone before you’ve had a chance to get to know them, to hear their story, to understand their life, more times than not, you will be wrong.

When our first daughter was born, I was understandably stressed. She was, after all, our first, my wife was of a certain age, the epidural didn’t take, not once but twice, the delivery doctor looked stressed when she finally arrived, and the worst of it by far was those few seconds of silence when everyone told me I was supposed to hear the wailing of a baby but didn’t. She finally started crying after the longest ten seconds of my life. I breathed a sigh of relief, held my wife’s hand, but even after the baby was taken away and my wife fell asleep, I couldn’t find stillness. It wasn’t something I could shake, even though I’d tried praying, then reading by my wife’s bedside, so I decided to go for a walk on the hospital floor, my wife’s room was in. It was late, the sun had set, and as I walked in what amounted to a rectangle, I kept passing by a janitor pushing his cart full of cleaning supplies, stopping once in a while to peer in.

On the third go-round, I nodded in the universal gesture of greeting, and when he met my eyes and returned the nod, I asked how he was that evening. “All is quiet”, he answered in a heavy accent, “quiet is good.”

The accent intrigued me, so I asked him where he was from, and he told me he was originally from Croatia. As any immigrant is wont to do, I had follow-up questions: how long he’d been in America, whether he liked it here, whether he missed home, and all the other things only those who share the kinship of having been displaced share.

He told me his name was Lovro, he’d been in America for seven years, and that he’d been a surgeon back in the home country, but his accreditation was no good here. He had a wife and two grown sons, the wife having immigrated with him, the sons having stayed behind in the old country. Had I not engaged in conversation with the man, I would never have known the details of his life that made him different, unique, and more than the janitor I would have assumed he was. Not that there’s anything wrong with being a janitor; rather, there was more to Lovro than met the eye.

Eliphaz saw a man he would likely not recognize as Job in his current condition, and went no further than to assume Job had sinned. That’s what happens to the wicked, buddy; therefore, you must have done wickedness.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Job CLXVI

 At any given moment, we are seen from three different angles. There is how others see you, how you see yourself, and how God sees you. The closest approximation to reality, the truest version of you, isn’t how you see yourself or how others perceive you, but how God sees you. It’s the only opinion that matters, the only one that can be trusted, because even one’s own heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.

If you are a son or daughter of God, blood-bought and born again, then it matters not what others say about you, or to you for that matter, you know that you are His and He is yours, and though men may revile you, though fair weather friends may abandon you, God will be an ever present help in time of trouble. He will always be the refuge to which you can run and know that you will find peace and comfort.

Although a separate conversation about sonship is warranted, wherein it’s not about what we say with our lips but how we follow through with action, including repentance and brokenness of heart, I’m going off the assumption that those of you who read my writings aren’t superficial believers, or in it for the fire insurance.

Yes, there is a large swath of modern-day Christianity that claims sonship without ever having become a son or daughter of almighty God. There is a large swath of modern-day Christianity whose father is still the devil, yet who want all the benefits of being associated with the one true God. They’ve not been reborn, restored, transformed, cleansed, and made new; they still wallow in the mire and rabidly chase after the things of this world, but they did raise their hand in a service that one time, and that’s about as much effort as they were willing to commit to being grafted into His kingdom.

These are the selfsame people who roll their eyes at the mention of righteousness or repentance, and whenever challenged about the lives they live, their go-to is that God knows their heart. Indeed, He does, and it is deceitful and desperately wicked. Repent, oh foolish man, while you still can, while you still draw breath, because the last breath you draw is the last chance you have of being reconciled to God.

It’s not the duplicitous, hypocritical, or fair-weather believers the devil targets. They pose no danger to him and are no threat to his plans and agenda. It’s those who know who they are in Christ, those who walk in the authority of Scripture, those who hold fast to their faith no matter the storm or the size thereof, that he takes umbrage with. It’s those he seeks to devour.

If he can’t tempt you away from the truth, deceive you away from the truth, or distract you away from the truth, he will use others to try to dispirit you, dishearten you, and make you question the hope you have as an anchor of the soul, which is both sure and steadfast. A little doubt goes a long way, and the devil knows this better than anyone.

Just as the devil can’t make you sin but only tempt you with it, he can’t make you abandon hope. He will facilitate situations and circumstances where that hope is tested, but as long as you cling to the truth, as long as you cling to Jesus, as long as you know your place in God, it will have been a failed attack. Uncomfortable? Most assuredly. Oftentimes painful? Indeed, but God never promised an easy road, just an eternal reward at the end of it.

There’s a reason Paul describes the running of the race as the single-minded pursuit of an athlete doing his utmost to cross the finish line and receive his prize. I can’t say I’ve ever competed in events that were not team efforts, but I’ve known a handful of people who trained for marathons. To the last, their entire focus was on that one day when they would stand shoulder to shoulder with hundreds of others, hear the starting pistol, and strive to reach the finish line first.

Their entire lives revolved around diet and training, pushing themselves incrementally until race day, when they would go all out, leaving nothing in reserve. Whether their significant others, friends, families, bosses, or acquaintances understood their need to be single-minded in their pursuit was inconsequential to them. Whether they approved, cheered them on, or insisted that they were wasting their time was likewise irrelevant. They had committed to running a race and knew that if they did not adequately prepare, if they did not train, they would have no chance of finishing it.

The forefathers of the faith, those of the early church, understood that The Way was not a team sport, but an individual endeavor. Yes, we are members of one body, but individual members, responsible for running our individual races, that we may attain the prize.

1 Corinthians 9:24-27, “Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it. And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown. Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air. But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.”

There are no exceptions, exemptions, or deferments. If you want the prize, you must run the race, and do so with the goal and purpose of obtaining it. Understand that you are not competing for a perishable crown, but for an imperishable one, and let that reality guide your actions, reactions, words, and emotions. Be temperate; exercise self-restraint; be consistent in your race because the prize awaits all who commit to the way, and let nothing deter them from it.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job CLXV

 If Eliphaz had full agency over the words he was speaking, and there was no external force influencing his diatribe, it’s unlikely he would have indicted the whole of humanity, which included himself, insisting that man was both abominable and filthy, and it drinks iniquity like water. The wording allows for no delineation, no exceptions, or exemptions. There was no nuance insisting that much or most of humanity is abominable or filthy, but everyone, to the last, including himself, his momma, his papa, his wife, his sons, and his daughters, and lest we forget who this emotionally charged spoken word theater was targeting, Job as well. Especially Job. He was, after all, the one sitting on an ash heap watching his life slip away, so whatever righteousness or faithfulness Job was projecting was false and insincere. You can’t be an upright and blameless man because none exist!

Once again, historical context matters, helping us understand and draw some meaningful conclusions. The book of Job was written before the law of Moses, before the tabernacle, before the prophets, before the ark of the covenant, the temple, and most assuredly before the advent of Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Him. The Gideons weren’t putting Bibles in hotels; there wasn’t a church on every corner; and the knowledge and understanding of God were limited beyond our ability to relate.

Even in such times, those who sought God found Him. He did not hide nor turn away; He was not indifferent or absent. It may have been one man whom God found to be blameless and upright; it may have been just one man who feared God and shunned evil, but the existence of the one invalidated Eliphaz’s argument that everyone to the last was abominable and filthy.

Job 15:17-22, “I will tell you, hear me; What I have seen I will declare, what wise men have told, not hiding anything received from their fathers, to whom alone the land was given, and no alien passed among them: The wicked man writhes with pain all his days, and the number of years is hidden from the oppressor. Dreadful sounds are in his ears; in prosperity the destroyer comes upon him. He does not believe that he will return from darkness, for a sword is waiting for him.”

I know I’m right because I know things. Not only do I know things, but I also heard them from wise men who got it straight from the horse’s mouth, namely, their own fathers. They too knew what they knew because they had insulated themselves to the point that no alien passed among them, so whatever they believed could not be tainted by other peoples or tongues.

As wise as Eliphaz believed himself to be in his own eyes, his simplistic conclusion that as long as his forefathers kept themselves separate and isolated from others, their wisdom remained pure shows just how little he understood of demonic influence or the whispers of the enemy.

A man doesn’t need to come from afar to sow doubt, cause chaos, or spread division. Men’s own hearts betray them; their minds wander down paths with no light; their egos and pride attempt to draw them away from the truth, like a magnet. Eliphaz himself was now a case study of how the enemy can use others to apply pressure to those already hurting, and he didn’t even realize it.

By all accounts, it’s a far harder thing to break out of the spiral of self-deception than it is to do so when another person perpetrated the deception. Eliphaz knew what he knew, was sure of it, undeterred and inconsolable.

I don’t care what you say, I know you have done wickedness because the wicked man writhes in pain, and I haven’t seen anyone writhing in pain to the level you are, therefore, your pain is evidence of your wrongdoing, and there can be no other explanation—circular logic at its finest.

Eliphaz would rather have Job confess to a sin he’d never committed because it would validate his beliefs than allow for the possibility that there was something else going on that he did not understand, or that perhaps his friend had not committed some foul thing for which he was being punished.

No one is ever right all the time except for God. Certain people, however, feel the need to be right all the time, and they are willing to sacrifice anything in the pursuit of that impossible yet never-ending quest. I’ve seen marriages dissolve, people losing their jobs, children disavowing their parents, and friends becoming enemies, all because of this compulsion to be right all the time. Some of the issues were coin tosses at best, where you can see merit to the other person’s argument, or where there was no clear Biblical edict, but one side just wouldn’t yield until the other bowed the knee and relented.

Whether out of principle or pride, they missed the forest for the trees, and something as trivial as how long you’re supposed to boil an egg for became the reason for the unraveling of a friendship, a marriage, or gainful employment. By the way, the sweet spot is ten minutes; anything less and you have runny yolk. Anything more is a waste of time, and no, I don’t care how they did it back in the old country over a wood-burning stove that failed to distribute heat evenly. I jest, of course, but only to make a point.

Yes, there are moments when confrontation is inevitable, especially if it’s a Biblical issue, but most of the battles we choose to fight really aren’t worth fighting. The litmus test is whether we are doing it out of ego or for the sake of the Gospel. Once that is determined, and we discover it’s our ego driving us to insist that dinner napkins should be folded three times and not two, the next question that requires an answer is whether being right is worth the back and forth needed to convince your eight-year-old that you don’t use a steak knife to spread butter on your toast.

It was as though Eliphaz were painting a portrait; once he was done, he showed it to Job, asking if Job recognized the man. When Job said no because he knew he had not sinned against God, Eliphaz insisted, “It’s you —how can you not recognize yourself in the portrait I’ve painted? It’s you!”

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.