Job LXXIV

 Job 3:11-19, “Why did I not die at birth? Why did I not perish when I came from the womb? Why did the knees receive me? Or why the breasts, that I should nurse? For now I would have lain still and been quiet, I would have been asleep; Then I would have been at rest with kings and counselors of the earth, who built ruins for themselves, or with princes who had gold, who filled their houses with silver; Or why was I not hidden like a stillborn child, like infants who never saw light? There the wicked cease from troubling, and there the weary are at rest. There the prisoners rest together; they do not hear the voice of the oppressor. The small and great are there, and the servant is free from his master.”

We are all made equal in death. It doesn’t matter how we started, where we started, how far we got, how high we climbed, what we amassed, what we built, how famous we were, or how infamous; eventually, the grave beckons, the spark of life leaves the body, and we return to the earth from which we came. It takes a lot of pain to conclude that this would have been the best-case scenario for you as a person, wherein you query why it was that you didn’t die at birth.

It’s dark, to be sure, perhaps even unbearably bleak, but it just goes to show that Job was human. He felt pain like you and me, he felt joy like you and me, he felt loss like you and me, and in every way, he was as human as anyone walking the face of the earth today, yet it was within his ability to draw close enough to God and surrender himself to the point that God saw him as blameless and upright, fearing God and shunning evil.

Having been wealthy, Job saw the vanity of it, concluding that the best kings could manage was to build ruins for themselves and hoard and amass gold and silver they would never enjoy. If anything, Job’s discourse puts flesh on the statement Solomon would later make wherein he wrote, vanity of vanities, all is vanity.

It shouldn’t go unnoticed that two of the wealthiest men of their generation came to the same conclusion about material things and how impermanent they are. We can either take their counsel to heart or ignore it and go through the trauma of discovering the truth of their assertions on our own. Most people are stubborn and stiff-necked, thinking they can have a different outcome than those who came before them by doing the exact same thing. They won’t, but it will be years before they realize it. Then, rather than admit they were wrong, they’ll double down and keep pressing on to try to acquire things that bring them neither joy nor fulfillment.

Job’s grief followed its natural course. It’s not as though the inflection point of his life was delayed; his reaction to it was. After the shock of an unforeseen disaster wears off, the laments and lamentations begin, and once those are no more, the questions begin in earnest. The difference between Job’s questions and the questions of others in similar, if not comparable, situations is that while Job wondered out loud why he had not died at birth or perished when he came from the womb, most people walking about today would ask why tragedy had befallen them.

Job’s questions were of an existential nature rather than why a good God would allow evil to befall him, a man who had done his all to be upright in his conduct. This is not a distinction without a difference. We were told in the previous chapter that Job did not sin with his lips or charge God with wrong.

His stated position was that whether good or adversity, we must accept all things from God. That doesn’t mean he didn’t feel the pain or the loss, nor does it mean he was expected to be cheerful in his adversity and do cartwheels when the painful boils covered his entire body, but that he had settled in his heart that whatever came from the hand of God must be accepted without finding fault with Him.

It’s a tall order. Yes, I can sit here and pontificate, perhaps even wax poetic, but the reality is that while I’ve never gone through a season of trial wherein I found fault with God, I did wonder why He allowed it in my life. I had to determine whether it was a blessing, a test, or a correction and proceed accordingly.

The hardest one to wrap my mind around by far is a trial that, in the long run, turns out to be a blessing. You can’t see it when you’re in it. It’s near impossible to make sense of it, and while your mind is racing to find explanations, your spiritual man is insisting that you be still and know peace.

Before I met my wife, I was betrothed to another. For those of you not familiar with Shakespearean English, that means engaged. She was a pastor’s daughter, seemingly upstanding and of virtuous moral fiber, and wedding plans were well on their way before her cousin, of all people, called me while I was in the US, warning me that she’d been stepping out and had gotten serious with someone while I’d been away. It devastated me utterly. It was the only time in my life when I came close to having a panic attack. All the well-laid plans, dreams of a future with her as my wife, the conversations we’d had about how many children we wanted, and all the minutia that went along with courting someone went up in smoke and became as bitterness on my tongue in an instant.

I went to my grandfather, the only man I sought counsel from when things went sideways unexpectedly, and after telling him the story, he shrugged his shoulders and said, “Sometimes blessings don’t seem like blessings until you realize how much of a blessing they were.”

I respected him too much to give a flippant answer, but I had a few on deck in the back of my mind. I was heartbroken and near to despondent, and he was giving me fortune cookie anecdotes. Yes, I know, you can either curse the rain or buy an umbrella. If the sun is too bright, find a shady spot. You can’t drink water from a strainer. Got it, thanks. I thought it, but I didn’t say it.

During my next trip to Romania, I met the girl who would become my wife. In hindsight, twenty-five years in, with two beautiful daughters to show for it, I realize how much of a blessing my heartbreak was, and I thank God every day for it. Just because there is pain attached to an event or experience, it doesn’t mean it’s not a blessing in disguise or that it will not work together for good. Trust God. He knows what He’s doing.

With love in Christ, 

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Job LXXIII

 The potter not only determines the shape or form the clay will take, but he also determines the timing of when the vessel is put into the fire and how long it remains there. None of those things are within my purview or yours. The only thing incumbent upon us, the only thing we have control over, is to not resist the molding process and give God free reign of our lives in all things. Whatever it is we attempt to hold back will be an ever-present hindrance in our relationship with God. All things means all things, even those things your flesh pines over or feels entitled to.

If you’ve ever watched a potter mold a piece of clay, you know it’s not a gentle process. Even before he begins to work the clay into some discernable shape, the potter kneads it, flattens it, folds it over on itself, and kneads it anew until it has the desired consistency. Only then does he begin to form the clay into a vessel of his choosing. All the while, the clay remains silent. The clay does not resist the kneading of the potter in any way but submits wholly to the process required for it to be transformed into something more than just a piece of clay.

I am neither the captain of my own ship nor am I the master of my destiny. You cannot possess such a grandiose mindset and still humble yourself to the point of submitting to the authority of God in all things. I am a servant called to serve. That’s the extent of my titles. I have a Master and I defer to Him, obey Him, and follow Him, knowing that obedience is worth eminently more than any sacrifice I may bring before Him. He does as He wills with my life, and I can rest in that knowledge because I know Him to be a good and gracious Master. The road may not always be easy, and at certain points, it can get downright treacherous, but the knowledge of who He is keeps me surefooted and at peace.

You cannot serve God without trusting Him. You cannot commit your way unto the Lord unless you love the Lord of the way. We’re constantly bombarded with new and inventive ways to get things from God, to twist His arm to do our bidding, without having established true intimacy with Him and without having a proper understanding of our relationship with Him. Save your fifty bucks for the online course on how to fast your way to wealth and buy someone hungry a hot meal instead. At least you’ll be storing up treasures in heaven and not subsidizing the lifestyle of an ignominious ghoul who sees you as nothing more than a piggy bank.

In case you were wondering, no, it doesn’t work. You can’t trick God into doing something contrary to His nature or something detrimental to your spiritual man even though your flesh really wants it. Some people get bitter because they want boatloads of money and never get it, never once, considering that in having acquired the wealth, their desire for God will fizzle out altogether. We don’t like to acknowledge the reality that perhaps God is doing us a favor by not giving us what we desire since it would dampen and diminish our desire for Him.

There is only one thing in this life that we can desire that God is ever willing to give us more of, and that’s Himself. But that’s not fair! Look at all these heathens burning through money as though it had an expiration date. Some guy just spent over six million dollars for a banana duct taped to a wall, which he then ate, and I’m having to sift through my car, hoping to find enough pocket change to get a gallon of gas for my Pinto. How’s that fair?

If life were about our time here on earth rather than eternity, it wouldn’t be. It’s not, though. That the contemporary church has managed to shift its focus from the things above to the things of this earth is not only detrimental and destructive but also the genesis of much bitterness in the hearts of those who ought not to be troubled or concerned about tomorrow. Say it with me: It’s not about this life, but the life to come.

It doesn’t matter how many bananas someone buys for millions of dollars; at the end of the day, we all end up in a box, in the dirt, nevermore to take a lungful of air or see another sunrise. Prince or pauper, the only difference between the two is how nice the box is. That’s when this flicker of a life ends, and eternity begins, and as is most often the case, once eternity begins to unwind, location is everything. Obsessing over things you can’t take with you is a wasted life without any purpose beyond the handful of years you’re given to walk this earth. Eternity and where we will spend it should be at the forefront of our thoughts and actions, knowing that the time we have here is finite and fleeting, and once it’s done, there is no rewind button.

There are no redos; you can’t start over again and wish as we may to go back and redeem the time we wasted in pursuit of something other than eternity; it’s impossible. We tend to dwell on the things we can’t change as an excuse and delaying tactic to put off the things we can. It’s not a natural byproduct of human nature. It’s the enemy’s way of trying to run out the clock because he knows there is no hope of redress after we have gone from this earth. What we do with the handful of years we’ve been given while we are here will determine where we spend eternity. For some, this is a reason for rejoicing; for others, it is a source of constant dread.

No one has looked back on their lives and wished they’d served God less, obeyed Him less or trusted Him less. Even when faced with their imminent demise at the hands of their executioners, those who established the Lord in their hearts and surrendered their will to His did so joyfully, knowing the reward which awaited them. Things that matter, matter, and nothing matters more than knowing that you’ve been bought with a price, saved and sanctified, redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, born again in Him, through Him, and by Him.

When we lay hold of this truth, the things of this earth, the trials of this present life, the testings, and the hardships will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace. This is why we can retain the joy of the Lord amid sorrow and the peace that surpasses all understanding amid chaos.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Job LXXII

 Unless you’ve gone through it, the best any of us can hope for is an abstract understanding of what the sifting is. The reality of it, its crushing weight, and the constant buffeting with seemingly no end in sight must be experienced in order to be understood. It’s like someone explaining the difficulties of crossing the Atlantic on a single-passenger sailboat. Sure, you can get an idea of the level of difficulty with being alone on the stormy seas for weeks on end, but unless you’ve experienced the sunburn, cracked lips, anxiousness, isolation, seasickness, and privation, you only know the half of it.

There’s a reason ‘you had to be there to understand’ is a saying. Some things cannot be adequately explained unless they are experienced, and nothing less than the experience will suffice.

The notion of being sifted is not exclusive to Job or even to the Old Testament. It’s not a practice God decided to do away with or no longer allow because the idea of it didn’t poll well when it was peer-reviewed. The misconception that God is somehow subject to our feelings and emotions is ludicrous on its face but ever popular in the modern-day church. We’ve talked ourselves into believing that since we have no appetite for suffering, sifting, or testing, God’s just going to eliminate those things from our lives.

Luke 22:31-32, “Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift all of you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.”

Okay, fine, so two guys. One in the Old Testament and one in the New. That doesn’t make it a common practice, does it? Read those two verses carefully, and you’ll realize it’s not just two guys. It wasn’t just Job and Simon, who would later be known as Peter. Satan had asked to sift all of them as wheat. Jesus singled out Simon in telling him that he’d been praying for him that his faith would not fail, yet as far as the sifting goes, Satan had asked to sift all of them.

Being sifted and having Satan ask to sift the servants of God is not an exception but the rule. These were the guys, Christ’s inner circle, those whom He called by name and spent the last three years of His life ministering with, yet when Satan asked that they be sifted, his request was not denied. Jesus didn’t say Satan asked to sift all of you as wheat, but I got your back and told him no.

Knowing what the future held for Peter, knowing he would deny Jesus three times before the rooster crowed that day, knowing how wrecked he would be once that happened, Jesus encouraged him the only way He could: by telling him, He’d prayed that his faith might not fail.

God determines how far He will let Satan go and the lengths to which he will sift a given individual, but at some point in life, most of us go through it. Are there exceptions? I’m sure there are, but I haven’t met one yet. The firing process makes clay stronger. Without it, it remains fragile and porous. If you are determined to serve God, if Jesus is established on the throne of your heart, the day will come when Satan will ask to sift you.

In that moment, all you have is the faith and trust you’ve built up over the course of your spiritual walk and nothing more. When the sifting begins, it’s too late to grow, press in, mature, or deepen your understanding of the God you serve. Peter already possessed faith; Jesus prayed that his faith would not fail.

We put off the important things, thinking we have forever to implement them, nurture them, and grow them. We know having a prayer life is necessary for the health of our spiritual man, but something always comes up, and we delay the consistent practice of going before God and having fellowship with Him until something happens, and all the distractions melt away, and we find ourselves with nothing but time to sit in our prayer closets, weep and groan and call out to Him pleading for an intervention of some sort. Where were you before the storm clouds? Where were you before the thing that made your world turn on its ear happened in an instant?

Situational relationships are nothing more than usury. If the only time I approach God is when I need something from Him, it’s neither love nor the desire to know Him fueling my pursuit but rather desperation. Seek to know God, make time for Him, and fellowship with Him with as much enthusiasm and desire during your days of plenty as you would in your time of famine, and when the time of famine arrives, He will be present without having been called.

If we think we can ignore God for six days out of the week and pay Him lip service on the seventh, and that’s all it takes to have a firmly rooted relationship with Him, we’re fooling ourselves. I have a friend who’s a bit on the chunky side and doesn’t take care of himself at all until the week before he’s due for his annual physical. That’s when he gets serious, cuts out the sugar and the carbs, starts to move beyond his front door, and gets a little exercise in the hope that he can fool the blood analysts into giving him a clean bill of health. I keep telling him that’s not the way it works, but my counsel falls on deaf ears because he insists it’s worked in the past, and so it will again. That level of self-delusion will eventually be shattered, but by then, it will be too late.

You don’t get on a flight and only then consider packing a bag. By the time the doors on the plane close and you’re taxiing for takeoff, it’s already too late. You must possess faith, know the character of the God you serve, learn to trust Him and establish your heart to be faithful to the end long before you find yourself on a proverbial ash heap scratching at yourself with a potsherd. Your spiritual man needs something to tap into as he is being buffeted. He needs a strong foundation from which he will not be moved, and the onus is on us to redeem the time and do what we must in order to ensure that we have done all to stand.   

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job LXXI

 Recent studies have shown that the loneliest people on the planet live in the biggest cities. The more skyscrapers, apartment buildings, businesses, restaurants, subways, and the hustle and bustle of everyday life one is surrounded by, the lonelier and more detached they seem to be. It’s counterintuitive to the point of being illogical when you think about it. One would expect that the more they’re surrounded by other people, the less lonely they’ll be because the opportunity to make new friends is compounded with every hundred or so individuals within a certain radius.

Evidently, this is not the case. You’re more likely to make friends in a small, out-of-the-way town in the middle of South Dakota than you are living in Manhattan surrounded by all the other worker bees trying to get ahead and living in a world of their own. The one word that came up over and over again when people who participated in these studies were asked why they thought this was the case was community. The smaller the town you live in, the likelier it is that there is a strong sense of community, with neighbors helping neighbors rather than trying to set their cat on fire because it relieved itself on their lawn.

One of the devil’s biggest goals is to separate and discombobulate the body of Christ to the point that we are no longer one body but a tub full of body parts independent of each other, trying to do on our own only what an entire body can accomplish. A healthy body is interdependent upon all its members. Although the head may think itself of paramount importance, it needs the fingers and the hand to feed it in order to survive. The hands and fingers need the feet to take them to where the food is, the hands and feet need the eyes and the nose to tell them where the food is and if it’s edible, and once the food is masticated, making use of the mouth, the teeth and the throat, the digestive system has to work properly for the body to extract the necessary nutrients, and eliminate the rest.

Every time we touch upon this subject, there is bound to be someone who writes in insisting that no church body is good enough for them or that they have a hard time finding a fellowship, but lest we forget, where two or three are gathered in His name, He is there. I’ve been to church meetings in barns, garages, living rooms, and someone’s basement, where the presence of God was more evident than in any multi-million-dollar sanctuary I’ve ever come across. Just as the clothes don’t make the man, and I know that’s contrary to the modern adage but is nevertheless true, the opulence of the building or the size thereof doesn’t make the body.

Some of the scummiest, most disingenuous, duplicitous, underhanded, self-serving, callous people I’ve ever encountered were very well dressed, replete with the mandatory silk tie and the matching pocket square. Lawyers come to mind, and unfortunately, I’ve had to deal with a handful of those throughout my life.

Conversely, some of the most honest, down-to-earth, empathetic people I’ve been graced to know likely had one suit hanging in their closet, and that was there just in case they went to the great beyond and needed something to be buried in. When I get around to writing my will, I will specify that I want to be buried in shorts and the raggedy shirt I wear most mornings as I sit and write. No, clothes don’t make a man; his character and the content thereof, his principles, his honesty, and his consistency are what make a man.

We get taken in by the packaging and never bother to check what’s inside the box. Sure, the wrapping paper and the bows are nice to look at, but when it comes down to it, it’s what’s inside that gives it value.

Shortly after the revolution in Romania, we began traveling back to the homeland to help where we could and as we were able. My grandfather’s first trip back was in the early part of 1990, and we paid the extra cost for ten suitcases worth of Bibles to be shipped along on his flight. Those Bibles had been sitting in the suitcases for close to a year, taking up a corner of our already cramped apartment’s living room because God had told him he’d be going back and he’d be bringing Bibles along.

One of the many things I respected about my grandfather was his absolute and unwavering trust in God. If God told him to do something, he set his hand to the plow, not wondering how what he was told would come about or fretting about the impossibility of it in the present moment. Our entire family had been deported with specific orders never to return on pain of death. When he purchased the Bibles and the suitcases, the communists were still in power, and there wasn’t even a stirring among the populace, never mind a full-blown revolution.

After his first trip back, the day he arrived in Fullerton, he sat the family down and told us we’d be building churches in Romania. Although, at the time, we didn’t have the money, the money came in, and the next hurdle was getting it to Romania. This was before wire transfers were available since the country was still in upheaval and years before international banks hungry for profit opened up branches in-country. The only way to get the money into the country to buy the materials we would need for the churches God had told him to build was to carry cash.

To look at him, in his plaid shirt and baggy wool pants, no one would have thought this man was carrying six figures in US legal tender on his person, yet he was. If clothes made the man and hinted at his value, one would likelier hand him a dollar to buy himself a cup of tea than conclude he was carrying enough coin to buy an entire apartment building with money to spare in those days. We ended up building close to sixty churches throughout Romania in the early years after the revolution because the dollar went a long way back then, and the labor force was plentiful.

God sees what men cannot, and He judges by His standard rather than men’s standards. Never allow someone’s appearance to determine how you view them or the sort of value you assign to them. Whether scruffy, unkempt, well-dressed, or otherwise, we are all children of God. Too often, we let the wrapping dictate our reaction to someone long before what’s inside can come to the fore and present itself.

No one walking by, likely giving him a wide berth, would have thought that Job was a blameless and upright man whom God favored; it would have been the furthest thought from their mind. If they’d known of him before his testing, when he was the greatest people of the East, their likely reaction would have been to wonder what he had done to displease God so that he had come to such ruin. It’s not so much not trusting what your eyes see; it’s passing judgment based on what your eyes alone see that’s the problem.   

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job LXX

 Job 3:4-10, “May that day be darkness; may God above not seek it, nor the light shine upon it. May darkness and the shadow of death claim it; may a cloud settle on it; may the blackness of the day terrify it. As for that night, may darkness seize it; may it not rejoice among the days of the year, may it not come into the number of the months. Oh, may that night be barren! May no joyful shout come into it! May those curse it who curse the day, those who are ready to arouse Leviathan. May the stars of its morning be dark; may it look for light, but have none, and not see the dawning of the day; because it did not shut up the doors of my mother’s womb, nor hide sorrow from my eyes.”

The invocation of death continues for the first ten verses of the third chapter. It is not an easy, lighthearted read, and the only way to perceive it is to weigh Job’s words against the pain he is currently feeling. It’s one thing to say, “Lord, the road is hard, and I am weary,” it’s quite another to curse the day you were born and wish that it were darkness and no light shine upon it.

Although you couldn’t get any lower than Job’s current state, Satan still didn’t get what he was after, which was Job cursing God and finding fault with Him. Satan did not consider Job’s words a victory, even though they are the groans and heart cry of a man who sees no spark of joy in his existence, because his objective wasn’t to make Job sad or depressed but to disavow himself of God altogether, and deem Him unworthy of the faithfulness and devotion he showed throughout the years.

The devil’s goal isn’t to separate you from your material possessions or your health; to him, they are a means to an end, the end being you turning your back on God. If your joy, peace, purpose, and outlook on life are tethered in the temporal, in the material, or even in your own physical wellbeing, when these things are shaken, and they begin to crumble before your eyes, you will likewise be shaken in your resolve and devotion to God. If, however, you are tethered in God and draw your strength and fulfillment from Him, then nothing will shake your faithfulness when the things of this earth are no more.

Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. It is one of those immutable and absolute realities that prove themselves, and no matter how often men say otherwise, it is nevertheless true. If your heart yearns for God alone, then by that very act, you’ve neutralized close to all of the enemy’s fiery arrows and means of attack. There are still a handful to contend with after you’ve directed the desire of your heart toward the heavenly things, but far less than if you were still pining for the material, the fool’s gold of the here and now that has no permanence or place in the eternal.

When all is stripped away, yet God remains, and you discover He is sufficient, you cling to Him all the more. In order for God to remain, He had to have been present. He will meet you where you are, in your grief, in your loss, in your shame, as long as you’re not busy chasing after the things that have slipped through your fingers and ignoring His presence.

Some men insist that they can’t find God, even though they’ve never actively searched for Him. The pursuit of their entire existence has always been something other than discovering the majesty of God’s presence, yet, somehow, they lay the blame at God’s feet for never having encountered Him.

Matthew 7:7-11, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!”

When we sincerely desire something or someone, we pursue it with abandon. When we desire God and not the things that men tell us will be bestowed to us as a result of knowing Him, everything falls by the wayside, and He becomes our singular goal and object of affection. The beauty of desiring to know God is that He doesn’t play hard to get. God is not coy, demure, or coquettish; He’s not dragging us along until a better opportunity presents itself. He promised that if we seek Him, we will find Him, and if we knock, the door will be opened to us. It is because of this promise that we can approach Him with confidence, knowing that if we ask Him for truth, He will not give us a lie, and if we ask Him for life, He will not give us death.

We tend to overthink the dynamics of our relationship with God, and plenty of individuals are willing to needlessly complicate it and insist it couldn’t be so simple because it serves their ends. All of you for all of Him. That’s the contract. There aren’t fifty pages of fine print you have to wade through; there are no clauses for preexisting conditions or mitigating circumstances that would make the contract null and void. God is faithful. He keeps His word. He will not renege nor walk away when the going gets tough. He is an ever-present help in times of trouble and a comfort in times of heartache. Run to Him. Cling to Him. Trust in Him, and you will never be alone again.  

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job LXIX

 A lighthouse will always remain in a permanent fixed position. Depending on where the sailor is upon the roaring sea, however, it may seem farther or closer, off to the left or the right, but as far as the lighthouse itself, there is an unwavering permanence to it, no matter the time of year, how bad the weather, or how dark the night. The darker the night, the brighter the lights of the lighthouse, acting as a beacon and a point of reference to all upon the seas. The same goes for God and our individual relationships with Him. He is a fixed point, permanent and unwavering, yet depending on where we are in our journey, He may seem nearer or far. If He seems far, it is our duty and responsibility to draw closer to Him, and if the desire of our heart is that nearness, He will facilitate it because He is a good God.

Once they see the light of His love, wise men make their way toward Him, understanding that there is peace and joy in the light, there is wholeness and fulfillment, and comfort only He can provide. The light is never far from those who seek it. It does not hide itself; it does not dim in its intensity, nor does it attempt to conceal its illumination. Those who insist they cannot see it need only to open their eyes. The light of God is ever-present, but men choose to avert their gaze, pretend as though it’s not there, or insist that it’s something other than what it is because once you come to the light, it not only exposes the darkness of the heart but demands that the darkness be cast aside. Both cannot coexist in a closed space. Light and darkness are sworn enemies, and neither will relent until one is wholly subdued.

Job didn’t start out lightheartedly and escalated from there. There was no lightheartedness left in him, and all he knew in his current state was pain and grief. From the moment he opened his mouth, he poured out his grief, leaving no room for doubt or debate about how he currently felt. Because most of us have never been in such a dire state as to wish for death, it’s hard to relate to one such as Job on a personal level. I’ve sat alone with my thoughts for more than one entire morning trying to imagine what I would have to endure to come to that point in life, and it’s not an exercise I would recommend. Just thinking about what it would take is soul-crushing, never mind having to go through it.

We can view Job’s monologue from a position of spiritual superiority, looking down on the man and his declaration of cursing the day he was born, writing it off as weakness and lack of spiritual fortitude, or sympathizing with his state of mind taking into account all that he’d endured up to this point.

When you know someone’s going through the fire, make allowances for their grief. It’s the best advice I can give, especially when considering that your time in the fire may be just around the corner, and when you switch places with the individual contending with the pain of loss and hardship, you’d prefer that they show empathy rather than belittle you for not being so strong as to be unaffected by your current circumstance.

Doing unto others as we would have them do to us extends beyond being charitable, giving a glass of water, or buying a meal for someone. When we consider how we would like others to react to situations had we been the ones going through them, it tends to take the self-righteous air out of our quick temper or inclination to pour salt on their already painful wound.

Keep in mind Job did not sin. It wasn’t about calling out sin or bringing someone who had strayed back on the path; it was about pain and loss and grief. There are times when we must be direct and call someone out for the choices they’ve made, and there are times when we should be there for them, grieve with them, and be a shoulder upon which they can cry. It is wisdom itself to know which is which and act accordingly.

Some years back, I had a friend who would say the most hurtful things at the most inappropriate of times, and he would always follow up by saying, “I’m just being honest.” When a mutual friend showed up to lunch with a cast on his leg, after asking what had happened and being informed they’d fallen off their bike, rather than show empathy or compassion, his response was, “You should have known you’re too fat to ride a bike, I’m just being honest.” Granted, the friend who’d broken his leg was on the heavier side, but nothing so close as to render him incapable of riding a bicycle. I could see the hurt in his eyes when the comment was made, but the conversation transitioned to other topics, so nobody said anything.

A few days passed, and I got a call from my rude friend, asking if I could give him a ride from the hospital. I asked what had happened, and he told me he’d broken his ankle. I informed him I’d be there in ten minutes. After getting him situated in the car and making sure he was comfortable, I asked how it had happened. He sheepishly informed me that he was stepping off a sidewalk and didn’t notice the pothole in the street, to which I said, “You should probably watch where you’re going; I’m just being honest.”

I said it in gest, with a smile on my face, but his face turned ashen, and he remained silent for the rest of the drive. Most people who dish it out can’t take it, but sometimes, it’s good to give them a taste of their own medicine just to show them how their words affect others when they’re in the midst of hardship or struggle. It’s offputting when someone justifies being mean-spirited and hurtful by insisting it’s what their honesty demands. You chose to speak the words you spoke in the manner you spoke them. It wasn’t honesty that compelled you to do it but some latent bitterness with which you must contend.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Job LXIII

 The entirety of the third chapter of Job is divided between laments and lamentations and questions Job continues to ask, to which he receives no answers. It’s hard to reconcile what we hear passing for Scripture nowadays, wherein men insist that God becomes more of a permanent butler and wish granter than Lord and King of your life, and what we see His servants and ones such as Job whom He considered blameless and upright had to endure in their lives.

For most people, the difference between what they hear from the pulpit as to what their expectations should be as believers and the lives of those who came before them isn’t a contradiction; it’s an oversight.

Telling people that pain and loss, grief and tears, are part of the human experience and cannot be avoided unless you’re permanently attached to a tank of nitrous oxide isn’t quite as inviting as telling them that from this day forward, they’ll be blessed coming and going, sleeping and waking, regardless of whether it’s beneficial to their spiritual man or not. The flesh has become a de facto god, and the priests thereof are quick to serve it and make it feel at ease whenever called upon to do so.

When anyone dares to bring up the point that Jesus Himself said that in this world, we would have tribulation, they’re quick to insist that He meant it exclusively for His disciples, sort of like the Holy Spirit, who He likewise said would be with us and in us until the end of time.

If love for God and the presence of God is not indwelling in the heart of man, then man will seek to serve his heart rather than God. Knowing that the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, it’s likely that you may not want to go where it leads or give in to its desire because it will ultimately end in destruction.

I don’t mean to spoil it for anyone, but the Bible never says to follow your heart. I know, it’s a game changer. So many arguments within the household of faith could have been averted altogether if the parties in contention had agreed to let the Word of God have the final say.

I believe I have a decent enough poker face. By that, I mean I don’t wear my heart on my sleeve, nor do I foreshadow my emotions. There is perhaps one person in the world who knows what I’m thinking at any given moment, and that’s my wife. We’ve been together long enough that I don’t have to emote or have any outward reaction to anything in order for her to know exactly what’s going through my mind. That said, whenever I hear someone begin their argument with the ever-irrelevant “I Feel,” especially when it comes to heretofore-established biblical matters, I can’t help but roll my eyes. It’s instinctual, and I’ve been in conferences where it’s been noticed.

There is a difference between feeling your hurt, feeling your pain, feeling your loss, and allowing those feelings to dictate how you react toward God and your fellow man. God did not create man to be an unfeeling robot. He created man with the ability to connect, to love, to laugh, to cry, to mourn, to feel triumph and loss, to cheer on the accomplishments of their progeny when they progress, and their cello and violin playing no longer sounds like someone is abusing a cat, and feel disappointment when they choose to eat an entire bag of fun size Snicker’s in one sitting even though they knew better.

Job was verbalizing his feelings, his pain, and his grief, but he did not allow them to overtake his senses and use them as a justification to sin against God, whether in word or deed.

1 Corinthians 10:13, “No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.”

Temptation comes in many forms. It’s not just that leftover piece of chocolate cake in the fridge that’s tempting you in the wee hours of the morning. Such temptations are easy to resist because you just close the refrigerator door and go on with your day. The more nefarious temptations are the ones you can’t walk away from, those stewing in the back of your mind, whether it’s resisting the will and purpose of God for the struggles of life or questioning His sovereignty when the unexpected and unplanned happens, and everything around you seems to fall apart.

There have been moments in life where the urge to try and solve a problem on my own rather than waiting patiently upon the Lord was near to overwhelming. It’s a battle of the mind and one that is taxing beyond belief because the flesh is essentially at war with the will of God, and one must win out.

With every act of submission, with every heart cry of “Your will be done,” it becomes easier to trust God in all things because hindsight will make it clear that had you tried to do it on your own, it would have had disastrous results. Had I tried on my own, I would have failed. Even though my plan was logical, well-reasoned, and, at the moment, seemed like a viable remedy, looking back and seeing how God went about solving it humbled me and made me trust Him all the more.

A man’s way may seem right to him, but unless it’s God’s way, no matter how well thought out his way may be, that man is courting disaster and destruction. When we are humble enough to submit to God’s authority in all things and allow Him to guide us, He will make the crooked ways straight, and the trials that once seemed insurmountable will become a reason to glorify Him.  

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.