If, as God Himself clearly stated, the fear of the Lord is wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding, why are these things so sparsely, anemically, and infrequently taught in the modern-day church? We go out of our way to repackage and rebrand humanism and present it as wisdom; we twist ourselves into pretzels trying to circumvent the fear of the Lord and the need to depart from evil, while still insisting we can attain it without these two pillars. We regurgitate tropes and mantras that time has proven to be worthless and ineffective, all to avoid addressing these two biblically sound truths.
Why are the fear
of the Lord and departing from evil avoided like the plague in the contemporary
church? Why are we so reticent to preach the whole counsel of God, and rather
choose to cherry-pick passages that do nothing to challenge us, chasten us, or
correct us? There could only be one of two answers to this question: either those
responsible for rightly dividing the Word do not want those under them to
attain wisdom and understanding, or they do not believe God at His word. Either
one is bad optics on the best of days, and rebellious disobedience on the
worst.
Job 29:1-6, “Job
further continued his discourse, and said: ‘Oh, that I were as in months past,
as in the days when God watched over me; when His lamp shone upon my head, and
when by His light I walked through darkness; just as I was in the days of my
prime, when the friendly counsel of God was over my tent; when the Almighty was
yet with me, when my children were around me; when my steps were bathed with
cream, and the rock poured out rivers of oil for me!”’
When the presence
of God is a constant in one’s life, any deviation from it, any absence of it,
even a temporary one, is like a hammer blow. It is likened to suddenly having
your airflow constricted and not being able to take your next breath. Everything
was normal, life was as life is, then suddenly, you exhale, and try as you
might, you can’t catch your next breath.
People who don’t
miss the presence of God never had it to begin with. That may sound harsh, but it
is nevertheless the truth. If one wanders from the way, if one ceases to have
the fear of the Lord, or no longer departs from evil but instead surrenders to it,
and they do not feel God’s absence, then they never truly felt His presence.
They may have had some emotional reaction to a sermon or a hymn, it may even
have elicited tears, but as far as the abiding presence of God, if it was
present and begins to wane, or is absent altogether, alarm bells would be going
off, and the only thing on their mind would be to return to their first love,
and reestablish fellowship with the Almighty.
Job knew what was
missing because he’d lived with God’s presence for years on end. He did not
know the reasons behind why he felt abandoned and forsaken; he just knew that
things were not as they were, not because of the things he’d lost but because
of the absence of His presence.
Perhaps God’s
presence wasn’t absent altogether, and Job still saw glimpses of Him through
the haze of his pain and loss, but what was once a raging bonfire was now mere
embers, and Job remembered the fire. He remembered the warmth of it, the
brightness of it, and knowing what had been and comparing it to what now was,
tore at him.
Job was not vague
about what was missing. The specificity with which he detailed these things
only proves the depth of devotion, fellowship, and relationship Job possessed.
He knew God had watched over him, but felt it no longer. He knew God’s lamp
shone upon his head, and that he walked through darkness by His light, yet now,
things were dim, and he was no longer sure-footed. The friendly counsel of God once
over his tent was no longer present, and he felt the loss of all these things.
It wasn’t a
tingle in his toes that Job was missing; it was verifiable attributes of a true
relationship with the Almighty that Job no longer felt. It didn’t matter what
area of his life he was referring to, Job acknowledged God in every single one.
It was by His light that he walked through darkness, not by his sharpened
senses, not because he’d bought the newest flashlight, not even because the
ground he trod in the darkness was so well known to him that he knew where
every loose stone and pebble was. His dependence was not on his own faculties
to guide him through life, but on the God he served, trusting Him to light the
way.
As a father, I
also found it highly relatable that, of all the things he’d lost, the one thing
he remembers with both sadness, fondness, and regret was the times when his children
were around him. He makes no mention of the oxen, goats, camels, or earthly
possessions he’d been stripped of, but he does mention his children,
remembering the time when they were around him.
The world makes
treasures of worthless things, of baubles and fool’s gold, while dismissing the
true treasures, those things that come from the hand of God, that bring joy, fulfillment,
and wholeness in ways no material things can. You can lament for those still
blind to life’s true treasures if they are still of the world, but as sons and
daughters of God, we should know better and use our time accordingly. It’s the
things that don’t have a price tag, that aren’t exclusive to the elite, that
aren’t reserved for the rich that reveal the majesty of our creator God, from the
flutter of a butterfly’s wings, to the smile of a newborn babe in swaddles.
Not only was Job a blameless and upright man, but he also had his priorities in order and valued what truly mattered in this life. Most people read the book of Job and conclude that it is the quintessential prototype of how to suffer well, but it’s these small glimpses into his life that reveal there was more to him than the ability to endure hardship, and more lessons could be learned from his life than submitting to God’s sovereignty in all things. Yes, that one lesson stands head and shoulders above the rest, but we dismiss the others to our detriment.
With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea, Jr.
