Job CCC

 Job 32:1-9, “So these three men ceased answering Job, because he was righteous in his own eyes. Then the wrath of Elihu, the son of Barachel the Buzite, of the family of Ram, was aroused against Job; his wrath was aroused because he justified himself rather than God. Also against his three friends his wrath was aroused, because they had found no answer, and yet condemned Job. Now because they were years older than he, Elihu had waited to speak to Job. When Elihu saw there was no answer in the mouth of these three men, his wrath was aroused. So Elihu, the son of Barachel the Buzite, answered and said: ‘I am young in years, and you are very old; therefore I was afraid, and dared not declare my opinion to you. I said, ‘Age should speak, and multitude of years should teach wisdom.’ But there is a spirit in man, and the breath of the Almighty gives him understanding. Great men are not always wise, nor do the aged always understand justice.’”

If you can’t win an argument on merit, if you can’t accuse someone of wickedness based on the evidence, the only thing left to do is start slinging mud and frame the individual in question as either pompous, elitist, or self-righteous. You don’t see things the way I do; you don’t come to the same conclusions as me, so there must be something wrong with you. We can’t put our finger on it; we can’t identify what it is, but sure as the sun shines, something is amiss; otherwise, you would have relented and acquiesced to our judgment. That’s what Job’s three friends had concluded, and, comforting themselves with the notion that he was being righteous in his own eyes, they ceased answering him.

The easiest way to see someone’s true character is to disagree with them on some small matter that in the great scheme of things is tertiary and irrelevant, and watch their reaction to it. People who think they’re always right can never admit to it when they are wrong. In their minds, being wrong is an impossibility, and so they eliminate the possibility thereof altogether. It’s never considered, it never enters the equation, and so they have to rationalize it to themselves by finding reasons to support their conclusion.

I don’t think it was ever intentional, but my grandfather had a gift for putting people on the back foot and watching them react. He wasn’t mean about it, just honest, but even back then, some took honesty as an affront and an insult. For all the years we lived in California, we didn’t have a dedicated ministry office or a dedicated line. Everything was run out of the two-bedroom apartment seven of us lived in, and the ministry line was the same as our home phone number, which became a bit of a nuisance when it would start ringing as early as four or five in the morning because those calling hadn’t figured in the time difference between the East Coast and the West Coast.

One morning, we got such a call with someone asking if they could drop by for a visit, as they were traveling to California the following week, and since we are the hospitable sort, we told them they could drop by any time, and we would have a prayer, a meal, and a talk.

He showed up four days later, and immediately, one could tell something was off. There are humble, pious people, then there are those who pretend at it, and this man was the latter, both in his mannerisms and the condescension he exhibited at seeing the humble apartment we lived in.

“You live here?” he asked, arching his eyebrows and wrinkling his nose.

“Indeed, we do,” my grandfather answered in Romanian, and I dutifully translated into English.

We invited him in, pointed to the table, offered him a chair, and suggested that if he wanted to place the large bundle he was carrying under his arm against the wall, he was more than welcome to do so.

“Oh, this is far too important to lay on the floor,” he said, and placed it across his knees as he sat.

My grandfather pulled up a chair across from him. I sat next to my grandfather, and we waited to see what the man wanted. Meanwhile, my mother was busy making lunch in the kitchen, and since it was a small apartment, you could hear the sizzling of the pan and the clanging of the pots, to which he said, “Can she be a bit less noisy? I have an important message to deliver to you.”

“She’s doing her best,” my grandfather said, a look of annoyance flashing on his face, “what brought you to our humble home?”

“I am here to reveal to you that I am King David, and you are to be Prince Moses, and we two are to be the voice of God throughout the land. As he said this, he reverently lifted the bundle from his knees and placed it on the table between us.

“This is your staff, Moses,” he said.

My grandfather arched his brows, shrugged his shoulders, and, without missing a beat, asked, “Why do you get to be a king, and I a lowly prince? I want to be king.”

The flush in the man’s face was instant. “No, that’s not the way it works,” he spluttered. “I’m King David, and you’re Prince Moses. That’s the way it works.”

I translated what he’d said, trying not to grin, and after taking a deep breath, my grandfather answered and said, “I have already received my marching orders, I already know what my duty is to God, and if there were to be a change of plans, He would have told me as much. I cannot be the Moses to your David, but you’re more than welcome to break bread with us, have a time of prayer, and fellowship.”

“I will do no such thing,” the man answered, pushing his chair away from the table, “I’ll shake the dust off my feet, is what I’ll do, you are not the man I thought you to be.”

“That’s fine,” my grandfather said, “my daughter will vacuum later.”

To that, the man stood and stormed out of our apartment, without another word, leaving the staff of Moses behind in his haste. It turned out to be a nice walking stick, ornate and beautifully carved, that my grandfather used on occasion when his gout and arthritis got to be a hindrance.

The point of the story is simple: the man had walked in with a preconceived notion, an assumption that he was certain was the right one, and would not allow for the possibility that he was mistaken. When his assumption was challenged, there was no introspection, but rather angry retorts and combativeness. Be humble enough to allow for the possibility that you misread a situation, that you prejudged someone not based on evidence but on emotion, and if you discover this to be the case, be humble enough to repent of it.    

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.