Job CCCLVIII

 God doesn’t deal in hypotheticals. He’s not some sleazy investment guru on the internet who has to preface his pitch by saying he is not giving you investment advice, wink, wink, but all that he’s about to say is for entertainment and educational purposes. God doesn’t make empty promises; he doesn’t inflate His numbers; He doesn’t promise you the moon and the stars only to leave you with an empty wallet, wallowing in bitterness, wondering to yourself how you could have ponied up a whole hundred dollars for a course that promised to make you a millionaire only to be told you’re not getting a refund because you didn’t follow all the steps and didn’t have the initial half million seed money to grow your wealth.

No, I didn’t fall for it, but I know people who have. I grew up around hustlers, and I understand that if something is too good to be true, it likely is, so anytime someone tries to charge me in order to impart their wisdom, I shut down and walk away without giving it a second thought.

Unlike men, God means what He says, does as He promises, and whenever we take a step of faith and trust Him, He never fails. Oftentimes it begins with one small act of faith, something that your logical mind insists is wasted effort, but once you commit and follow through and do as the Word of God prescribes, you see the promise fulfilled in real time and in ways you could have never foreseen. 

It starts with one. Whatever it is you endeavor to do, it always starts with one. One choice to walk past the donuts and not pick up a dozen out of habit, one choice to walk around your block rather than sit in front of the television. One conscious decision to lay aside the troubles of this present life and commune with God. One step, one decision, one moment of realization that the earth and everything in it is passing away, so putting our trust in anything in it is an exercise in futility at best.

Of all the things that had been restored to Job, his fellowship with God was the most prized thing of all. This is not a guess or an assumption, but a conclusion tethered to his own words when he declared that God’s absence, the absence of His presence, His voice, and His guiding hand, was what vexed him beyond any of his physical or emotional torments.

From his early years, Job had anchored his hope, trust, and faith in God, not in his possessions, not in what he had amassed, not even in his wife and children. The source of his utmost joy was communion with God, being in His presence, and knowing that He was there. It was when he cried out and God was silent that Job felt truly lost, and even then he would not abandon his faith in God.

If you committed to serve, then serve. If you committed to obey, then obey. If you committed to follow, then follow. Not only when the wind is at your back and the sky before you is clear, not only when the way forward is smooth, and there are no valleys before you, but in every circumstance, in every situation, even in the trials and the setbacks, keep your eyes fixed before you, and keep going, because by its very definition, the testing of your faith is no light, easy thing.

If we saw the end from the beginning as God does, there would be no need for faith. If we understood all the mysteries of the universe and could process all wisdom and knowledge fully and completely, there would be no warning in the Word to lean not on our own understanding.

If one such as Paul concluded that for now we see through a glass, darkly, and know in part, then odds are you and I are in the same boat, and boasting about seeing everything clearly is an empty boast meant to stroke our ego and inflate our pride.

There was much Job didn’t know as he went through his trials, but the handful of things he did know were enough to carry him, strengthen him, and give him the ability to endure. What Job knew mattered more than what he didn’t know. He didn’t know why he was suffering the way he was, why everything in his life had been turned to ash, why his body had betrayed him and was nothing more than a skin suit covered in boils, or why God was being silent. He would have liked to know, had even cried to the heavens for clarification, but no clarification came.

What mattered, however, was what he knew. He knew God was real. He knew God was sovereign. He knew God was omnipotent. He knew God was worthy of worship whether in the valley or on the mountaintop. He knew God was just. He knew God was loving. He knew that though he did not feel His presence in the moment, God was nevertheless omnipresent. Most of all, having spent his life serving Him, Job knew God. Not an idea of Him, not what he’d heard others say about Him, but personally and intimately.

Do you know God? The one true God? The God of the Bible, and not some fabrication or approximation of what others think God is, or how they believe He should be, but as He reveals Himself in His word to those who are diligent to search it out and discover the beauty of all that He is?

If you do, then press on, press in, follow and obey, for He will lead you into all truth, to green pastures, and still waters. If you don’t know Him, while you still have breath, you have the opportunity to do so, not on your terms, but on His terms. Not for your glory, but for His glory. Not for your purpose, but for His purpose. Truly knowing God matters more than anything else in this life. It is the difference between life and death, light and darkness, eternity in His presence, or being cast into the outer darkness, far from Him. Choose wisely!

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.