Job CCXIII

Had it not been targeted at Job, Zophar’s soliloquy could readily pass for a sermon on the fate of the wicked, and how any pleasure, prominence, wealth, or influence they might have is only temporary and fleeting. While they are ascendant, while the things of this life are plentiful and there is no storm cloud in sight, their haughtiness grows, mounting up to the heavens. They’re on top of the world, the wind in their sails, and in their eyes there is nothing that could stop them or slow them down. They conclude that excess equals God’s favor, though they know their lives do not mirror what Scripture clearly states they should. Yet their end is inevitable, and they will perish forever like their own refuse if they continue down the path of wickedness.

Whether it’s a trick of the mind or a trick of the devil depends on the individual in question, but either way, they convince themselves that superficial commitment, situational devotion, and feigned worship are sufficient to access the storehouses of heaven itself and be drowned in material things. The only thing they really have to worry about is not getting crushed by all the blessings. That, and not missing the Sunday service where they get to beat a tambourine out of tempo, and testify to the goodness of the Lord because now their driveway looks like a used-car lot, even though it’s only them and the wife who are licensed drivers. I have things, therefore I must be doing something right. I have possessions, therefore God must be overlooking my hypocrisy, duplicity, and lack of reverence.  

More people have failed the tests of prosperity than have ever failed the tests of hardship. Wealth is as much of a test to determine where your true heart and affections lie as trials and setbacks are. If we rejoice and show gratitude when the Lord giveth, but grow bitter and disillusioned when He takes away, it says much regarding how we view God, and what we believe the core of a relationship with Him ought to be.

Either we believe God’s purpose is to sanctify, purify, and perfect us however He sees fit, or we believe His purpose is to placate and give us all the stuff we want just to keep us quiet, like a toddler who starts whining, screaming, and crying the instant his pacifier is out of reach.

Toddlers don’t go to war; mature, fully grown adults do. If ever you walk into a congregation, you’ll know which is which immediately. Are they praying for power, boldness, courage, and strength to endure, or are they trying to call money down from heaven and claiming riches beyond their wildest dreams? Are they focused on the growth of their faith, their spiritual man, and their commitment to Christ, or on the flesh and the ease and comfort thereof?

If the flesh is your priority, you will inevitably sacrifice anything in service of that ideal. You’re saying if I deny Jesus, I get to keep all my toys? You’re saying if I deny Jesus, I’ll never see the inside of a prison cell or suffer the loss of anything? Pinkie promise? If yes, then you’ve got yourself a deal. I’ll just repent later or cross my fingers behind my back when I do.

Conversely, if your priority is obedience to the will of God, then nothing the world can offer or threaten you with will be enough of an incentive for you to turn your back on Him. Take it all, take me away, do as you will, but I will never deny Jesus. An easy enough declaration to make when no one’s knocking on your door, searching your house for Bibles or other religious paraphernalia, waiting in the parking lot at church to see who shows up, or when something as benign as a prayer meeting is deemed a crime worthy of a prison sentence. We can tell ourselves it will never happen here, but the Bible says it will. Whether your gut or your heart, they are untrustworthy. The Word of God, however, is true from generation to generation. What God has foretold will come to pass. It is an absolute certainty.

When such practices begin to roll out, however, when the words of Jesus regarding the world hating us for His name’s sake, persecuting us, and killing us as though we were the greatest threat to civilized society, you will see the difference between those who spoke words they never meant, and those who are fully committed to Jesus even when it costs them everything to do so.

You’ll know soon enough who’s playing at being a follower of Christ and who is an authentic follower of Christ when there is pressure and an explicit cost to doing so. Until then, words are easy to come by, especially with a sympathetic audience. Getting on a soapbox and pontificating endlessly about how we would lead the charge against the darkness if it threatened the light is a proven lie since the darkness has not only threatened the light but is making headway, and most calling themselves Christians today pretend not to see it, excuse it, or justify it by pointing to the changing times and the changing culture.

Man will always find a way to excuse faithlessness, cowardice, indecisiveness, or selfishness when he places his wants, needs, interests, and comforts above obedience and commitment to God. It’s a coping mechanism, and one that works temporarily, but eventually we will all stand before the God who judges justly, and our jumbled, self-serving excuses just won’t do.

One’s dedication and commitment cannot be half-hearted, situational, or superficial when called upon to suffer loss, privation, physical or psychological torture, and still remain steadfast, unbroken, and resolute to the last.

This isn’t some hypothetical pabulum or theoretical rumination. It’s a truth that has been proven throughout the history of mankind time and again. Wherever persecutors rose up to persecute the household of faith, those whose commitment was steadfast weathered the storms no matter how turbulent they got, while those who were there for reasons other than being lifelong bondservants of Christ either faded away or became the persecutors of those they once called brother and sister.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Job CCXII

Job 20:4-11, “Do you not know this of old, since man was placed on earth, that the triumphing of the wicked is short and the joy of the hypocrite is but for a moment? Though his haughtiness mounts up to the heavens, and his head reaches to the clouds, yet he will perish forever like his own refuse; Those who have seen him will say, ‘Where is he?’ He will fly away like a dream, and not be found. Yes, he will be chased away like a vision of the night. The eye that saw him will see him no more, nor will his place behold him anymore. His children will seek the favor of the poor, and his hands will restore his wealth. His bones are full of his youthful vigor, but it will lie down with him in the dust.”

Human reason always assumes causality. It’s the easiest basis upon which we can conclude a particular thing, and so, we tend to take the straightest path and see in the straightest line. We dare not allow for the notion of exceptions, or the idea that we may not see as clearly as we think we do because that would diminish our perceived understanding, and compel us to humility and the acknowledging that we don’t know it all, we don’t see it all, and only One who sits above, for whom the world is as a footstool is omniscient in the truest sense of the word.

When Jesus answered the disciples’ burning question of who would be greatest in the kingdom of heaven, He called a little child in the midst of them and said, “assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.” Thankfully, He did not call a teenager, because if He had, I’d have questions, but a little child, likely still dependent on his parents for their survival, innocent in their intent, and more importantly within the context of this discussion, self-aware enough to know they didn’t know everything, and eager to ask as many questions as needed in order to gain understanding.

We can either approach God, Scripture, or a given situation with a sense of superiority, assuming we already know all there is to know, how it’s going to play out, and how best to interpret a given text, or with the attitude of a little child, self-aware enough to know that we don’t know everything.

While one allows for teachability and even correction, the other is stiff-necked and brittle, ignoring, deflecting, and otherwise rejecting any attempt to see a given situation in a light different from the one they themselves had not considered.

If you’ve ever been around little children, you know they have questions about everything all the time. From the simplest questions, such as why is the sun bright, why is rain wet, or why do we have to take a bath more than once a week, to the more profound ones, like what happens when we die, or why do baby teeth have to fall out when they are perfectly fine. Little children are inquisitive. They always want to know why, and more often than not, they have follow-up questions.

The older we get, the more set in our ways we become, the more we grow so sure of ourselves and our assessment of a situation that merely the idea of something being other than what we’ve already concluded is anathema to us. It’s not just some of us; it’s all of us, me included, and I’ve seen this throughout the years in practical terms.

A couple of years ago, my youngest was complaining about her thumb hurting. I looked at it, saw nothing obvious, and told her as much, placating her by suggesting she might have hit her thumb while playing and not remembered it. She was adamant she hadn’t, I insisted she must have, and a day later she returned with the same complaint.

“It’s still hurting, daddy, and no, I didn’t bang my thumb on anything.” When I asked if a kiss would make it better, and she answered no, I put her on my lap and asked her to show me her thumb again. Other than a bit of redness, there was nothing there. Even though in my mind I was fully convinced that she’d somehow hit her thumb on something, because she was so adamant that she hadn’t, I turned her thumb every which way, looking at it from all sides. As I was about to give up because there was nothing there, I looked straight down, squinting at the space between her nail and the meat of her thumb, and noticed a discoloration. I gently pulled down on the fleshy part to get a better look, and sure enough, there was a splinter lodged between her nail and her thumb. It wasn’t big, I’d missed the first time, and what’s worse, because I’d already made up my mind about the cause, I’d doubted the extent of the pain she was in.

I grabbed a pair of tweezers, extracted the splinter, kissed the ouchie, and felt like the worst dad on the face of the earth for the rest of the day. I’d looked at the evidence available to me, only that which was in plain sight, and I’d come to the wrong conclusion by not giving more credence to her words.

Nothing Job had said compelled Zophar and his two other friends to view the situation in a new light, or from a fresh angle. Of all the words Job had spoken, the only thing that had gotten through to Zophar was Job’s rebuke, and he made sure to let Job know that it vexed him. Once that bit of housekeeping was done, he went right back to trying to convince Job that he had sinned, not based on any evidence, but based on the anecdotal history of past generations and how the wicked had fared in each of them.

Yes, most of the time your daughter’s thumb hurts because she banged it on something and doesn’t remember doing so, but once in a while she has a splinter that you will only see if you look closer, from a different angle, and in a new light. Not everything is as it seems to the naked eye. Not every situation has a clear explanation, neatly tied up with a bow. Mysteries abound to this day, even though there is nothing new under the sun. A wise man is humble enough to acknowledge he may not be seeing a situation as clearly as he ought, while the fool concludes no other explanation can exist besides his own.  

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Job CCXI

 Job 20:1-3, “Then Zophar the Naamathite answered and said: ‘Therefore my anxious thoughts make me answer, because of the turmoil within me. I have heard the rebuke that reproaches me, and the spirit of my understanding causes me to answer.’”

I hear you, but I don’t hear you. I acknowledge that you spoke words, strung together to make sentences, but as far as allowing them to take root in my heart or compelling me to a bit of self-awareness or self-reflection, not so much. Since it’s all about me, and the words you spoke vex me, I’m going to go on a protracted rant that will not only invalidate anything you’ve said, but remind you that I’m right, you’re wrong, and you need to see the situation for what it is.

Your willful blindness to the depth of our wisdom is what should concern you, not that you’re a heir’s breath away from death. At least before you go, acknowledge that we were right. Admit that you’ve sinned even though you can’t remember having done so. It would make us feel so much better. That was pretty much Zophar’s opening salvo as he took it upon himself to rebuff the words Job had just spoken.

It’s worth noting that while Job spoke of his Redeemer, Him walking upon the earth, and the hope of one day seeing Him face to face, Zophar proceeded to make it all about himself, his feelings, his understanding, his worldview, and his conclusions. When everything you hear from an individual is about himself and not about the One he claims to serve, be cautious and wary when it comes to allowing their words to take root in your heart.

You and your buddies have been berating and abusing a man on the verge of death, a man you claim is your friend, insisting that he deserved worse, manufacturing sin in his life in order to justify your inferences, but the rebuke that reproached you was beyond the pale and needed a counterargument? Do tell.  

It was not the spirit of the Lord that caused Zophar to answer, but by his own words, the spirit of his understanding. There was no divine inspiration or revelation in his words, but an intellectual reaction to being challenged, wholly tethered to his understanding. You hurt my feelings! What I did and said prior to your retort matters not.

I know what I know, and nobody, not even God, will sway me from that position. My understanding is supreme! If anyone or anything challenges my understanding, then they must be wrong. What’s worse, you had the temerity to rebuke me, and it landed. It stung. I felt reproach, and that’s not something I can let go unanswered.

It is said it’s far easier to teach someone new habits than try to get them to unlearn old ones. It’s one of the reasons you should train up a child in the way he should go from the onset, so that when they are older, they will have a stable foundation upon which to grow. Be honest, be responsible, be accountable, treat others with kindness, serve Jesus, extend grace, love mercy, all these values and a slew of others are what my parents instilled in me at a young age, and what I strive to instill in my daughters. We’ve all seen the rude, obnoxious kids in the grocery store screaming and pitching a fit because they couldn’t get a third box of Coco Puffs. It’s because they are not being trained but allowed to do as they will to their detriment and their parents’ shame. Getting them to unlearn these habits is a monumental task, and most end up being rude, obnoxious adults because it’s all they’ve ever known.

A clean slate is just that. Something that can be written upon without the added effort of having to wipe down the doodles, and half-fleshed out thoughts, ideas, or machinations of an already used slate.

During my first year of high school, the Spanish teacher had to share a classroom with the math teacher, alternating periods, and each time, without fail, the Spanish teacher would get heated because the math teacher didn’t bother to wipe down the chalkboard at the end of her class.

The quietest the room ever got was during the first few minutes of Spanish class, when we all wanted to hear what the teacher was mumbling under his breath as he used the dry eraser to erase the numbers, fractions, and equations from the chalkboard. Since he was American, his outbursts usually came in English, and some of the students took to translating what he’d said into Spanish and quoting it back to him just to see him get red in the face.

The point is that it takes more time and effort to explain to someone who considers themselves spiritual that it really doesn’t mean anything, and that they need to repent and be born again, than to take an individual who acknowledges their need for a savior and point the way to Jesus. Whether it’s praying the rosary or praying to Mary, going to confession via a priest, all of these practices need to be unlearned, and those in authority must possess enough patience, wisdom, and knowledge of Scripture to explain why.

Why can’t I pray to Mary? Because Mary doesn’t save, Jesus does. Why can’t I go to a priest for confession? Because there already exists a mediator between man and God, and that is Jesus. Why can’t considering myself a good person, a moral person, or a spiritual person ensure my eternity in God’s presence? Because your righteousness, noble deeds, selfless endeavors, or spirituality are as filthy rags before a holy God, and only being made clean through His Son’s blood will allow you to be welcomed into His kingdom. It’s not an accident that Jesus is the center of everything. He already told us as much when He said, I am the truth, the way, and the life; no one comes to the Father but by Me! Anything that takes away from the supremacy, sufficiency, and exclusivity of Jesus is wrong, no matter how right it may seem to our own eyes.

When we care more about being right than about the truth, we enter murky territory that fosters callousness and breeds indifference toward anyone other than ourselves. Whether intellectual superiority and elitism, or spiritual superiority and elitism, their roots are intertwined and take succor from the same source: pride. This was the frame of mind Zophar found himself in, and if his fake outrage at Job for having hurt his feelings achieved his desired end, he had no qualms about using it to its fullest.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Job CCX

Speaking of my wife’s job, nearly half of her clients are individuals who, having tried to fix it themselves, realized they were in over their heads, and in trying to make it better, they just ended up making it worse. I mean, how difficult can it really be? A wall here, a buttress there, a vaulted ceiling and some arched doorways, and you’re in business.

After months, if not years, of wasted effort, money, and time, they had to swallow their pride and admit they couldn’t do it on their own; they had neither the skill nor the ability to carry out the project and make come to fruition what they imagined in their minds, and finally sought the help of a professional.

The hard truth they faced was that not only would they have to redesign their adobe, but they also had to tear down the things they had tried to do themselves because they were incongruent with the project as a whole.

Spiritually speaking, many today follow the same path, fall in the same snare, and not only do they have to be built up from the ground up, but they also have to undo and unlearn all the things they tried on their own before they came to the realization they couldn’t do it on their own.

Raise your hand, say this prayer, send a check, and you’re good to go! But what about being discipled? What about having some notion of the direction I’m supposed to be headed in? Do you perchance have a blueprint or a general outline of what the end result should look like? Oh, I’m sure you can figure it out. I’ve got to go make fifty videos about how a thousand people got saved the other night, so I’m a little tight on time, but make sure to like, comment, and subscribe to the videos I’ll be putting out. Engagement is essential, and the algorithm rewards participation.

But what about growing, maturing, and understanding the deeper things of Scripture? What about going beyond the milk of the Word to something denser? Oh, you know, just feel your way through it. It’s like telling someone to go buy lumber, nails, and a hammer, then once they’ve done that, expecting them to build a craftsman home from the ground up with no instruction, direction, or idea of what it should look like. Then we’re shocked that so many are spiritually stunted, have no relationship with the God they claim to serve, or have never approached Him after that one night when they said the sinner’s prayer in a hushed tone.

To be fair, there’s also the other side of the coin, wherein people who’ve never held a hammer or used a saw are keen on telling you how to build your own house. They got saved on a Tuesday, and by Friday, they’re reimagining Scripture, questioning the purpose of Christ’s being born, insisting that He is not sufficient, and there’s a plethora of other things you need to do to be saved, then declare themselves prophets to the nations which you must obey as though it were God Himself standing before you asking you to give generously.

It’s like taking marriage advice from newlyweds on their honeymoon. What do you know about it, exactly? I’m sure for the week you’re on a beach, waking up every morning with the sun warming your face with no worries and no concerns, it’s as easy as a Sunday morning, but let’s talk after a decade or two, a couple of health scares, a miscarriage, conversations about budgeting, or having to care for your wife or husband for an extended period of time while they’re bedridden.

Perhaps then, it won’t seem so easy, but it doesn’t mean it’s not worth it. Nothing worth having in life comes easy. That’s just a sales pitch that unscrupulous people resort to when trying to get you to buy their course. A seven-figure passive income without a dollar out of pocket? Sign me up. The course costs five grand? What about the no out-of-pocket money thing? Oh, you mean after I give you the five grand? Got it, thanks.

A warrior does not become seasoned in a vacuum. A warrior becomes seasoned through battle, building upon the experiences of having stood toe to toe with the enemy and not flinching away. Seasoning, maturing, or growing in God, for that matter, takes time, even if it’s not what some might want to hear. It’s not about a diploma or a certificate of completion of some online seminary; it’s about lived experience and walking with God purposefully and consistently.

Your faith in God grows and expands as you journey through life following after Him. Had Job not had his lived experience regarding the faithfulness of God as a foundation, it would have been a short book indeed. Two chapters in, and Job would have been vanquished, his doubt overwhelming any desire to endure, but this was a seasoned warrior, one who had seen the hand of God at work time and time again, and who understood finishing a race is as important as starting it, if not more so.

The glory, the reward, the culmination of one’s labors in life are at the finish line. It’s the desire to hear well done, good and faithful servant that makes the trials, hardships, and valleys of life tolerable, while having the added benefit of refining us, maturing us, and teaching us reliance on the God we serve. I know my Redeemer lives. Five words that resonate with every believer. Five words the contemplation of which could fill entire libraries. Five words that give us hope in the midst of despair, that provide us with peace in the midst of chaos, and that give us joy in the midst of heartbreak.

You can know all there is to know about moon cycles, constellations, ancient civilizations, and the letter of the law, but if you do not know that your Redeemer lives, it’s all for naught. Job knew! Although his flesh was withering, his servants abandoned him, his friends judged him harshly without evidence or merit, Job knew his Redeemer lived, and that gave him the strength to press on.  

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Job CCIX

 Not one of the major themes that Job hits upon in the last eight verses of this chapter could have been intuited by human reason or logic. Whether speaking of a future time when He shall stand at last on the earth, or the resurrection of the dead, wherein Job declares that in his flesh he would see God, or that in the end there is a judgment, all of these were divinely inspired utterances meant to resonate through time, left for the generations that would follow as a testament, and a testimony.

What may seem obvious to us today, given that we have the canon of Scripture, and that the birth, life, death, burial, and resurrection of the Christ have already taken place, wasn’t so obvious to the people of Job’s time. It was pure revelation, and although God did not intervene in Satan’s sifting of Job, these divine insights helped to sustain him through the trial he was enduring.

If you’ve walked with God for any length of time, you can look back and identify the moments when, at your lowest, He spoke encouragement to you, when, at your most desperate, you’ve felt the touch of His hand. It wasn’t your high IQ mind coming up with the perfect balm for your pain; it wasn’t your resilience or ability to pull yourself up by the bootstraps that gave you that extra burst of peace, joy, or comfort; it was God, His presence, and His love that saw you needed it.

We tend to take credit for what God does in our lives. I’ve heard some variation of I worked on myself, or I healed myself, more times than I could count, and what so few realize is that none of us possess the tools to fix ourselves. None of us possesses the knowledge or ability to heal ourselves.

It’s one thing to try to fix something that broke if you knew what it was supposed to look like when it was whole. The problem is that absent God, man was never whole. Man was never fixed. Man was never right. The best any man can do without the aid, presence, and restoration of Christ’s blood washing them and making them clean is a less broken version of themselves, but never really whole. A less sickly version of themselves, but never truly healed.

There are programs, centers, and clinics aplenty trying to circumvent the need for Jesus. Even when we acknowledge our frailty, we refuse to recognize it fully. We still think we can patch a bullet hole with a Band-Aid and be right as rain. I don’t need to surrender my life to Christ, I don’t need to repent and humble myself; all I need is thirty days in rehab, says the man whom the staff knows on a first-name basis because of all the times he’s been a guest.

If you break your finger, taking aspirin will not heal it; it will just numb the pain, and even that is only temporary.

God doesn’t deal in pain management; He deals in healing. He restores, transforms, and makes new, not partially, but fully. He cauterizes the open wounds of betrayal, disappointment, self-loathing, doubt, fear, inadequacy, trauma, and hurt with His love, and once the wounds are closed, He doesn’t just paint over the scars but makes the entire heart new.

A new heart does not possess the old desires. A new heart does not possess the old yearnings. A new heart receives a new purpose, and the things that once brought it joy and pleasure are as dross and rubbish.

My wife is an interior designer by trade. She is phenomenal at her job. Sometimes, people mistake her for a decorator. They just want some new curtains, or some sconces, perhaps a fresh coat of paint, or some crown molding, just to spruce up the place, but not really change anything beyond the superficial. She then has to inform the individuals that it’s not what she does.

Her job is to take an existing structure and remodel it completely. Tear down walls, move pipes, gut the place down to the timbers, and rebuild it differently, all of which require time and labor, because while you can hang some new curtains over lunch, it takes weeks if not months to demo an entire home, frame new walls, install new floors, and bring in new appliances.

If you’re looking for a decorator, God’s not what you’re looking for. There are life coaches, therapists, and specialists aplenty for those things. If you’re looking to make the existing you less hideous to the eye while remaining the same in your heart, there are beauticians, nail salons, fashion gurus, and a glut of makeup companies eager to take your hard-earned money with little to show for it at the end of the day.

Superficial change does not require divine intervention. Transformation, however, requires not only God’s active presence but your voluntary consent to be transformed and made new. God will do the work, but you must allow Him to do it.

In conversation with my wife, she’s made it crystal clear that the most tedious clients are the ones who constantly second-guess everything and question every decision. Why can’t we just do away with this wall entirely? Because it’s a load-bearing wall, and if we remove it, you’ll be wearing your roof for a hat. Why can’t we just extend this part of the house by a couple of feet? Because it would end up on our neighbor’s land, and he will likely sue you into homelessness.

If you’ve submitted yourself to God, trust that God knows what He is doing. Yes, everything He removes, prunes, or otherwise demands that you must repent of is necessary. You need a new roof because the old one is leaking. You need new siding because your home has termites. You need a new heart because your old one is riddled with sin, and it cannot carry the presence of God in its current state.

God is not a decorator. He is a designer, demo crew, and expert builder all in one. He knows what He is doing, and if you neither despise the chastening of the Lord nor detest His correction, but submit to His will, you will be in awe of the finished product.            

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job CCVIII

 If someone’s friendship, respect, or loyalty is contingent on what you can do for them, just know that, much as they might insist that they’ll be with you through thick and thin, it’s situational, and once you can no longer provide the thing they’re after, they will be the first to disavow you.

We see this happening in churches nowadays, where the prominent members get preferential treatment, are pandered to, are placed in the front row and fawned over, but the moment they’re no longer able to write the checks, or their name wanes in popularity, and it’s no longer profitable for the preacher to associate himself with them, they’re discarded. Such individuals are within their rights to feel like they were used, whether for their money or their clout, because that’s precisely what happened.

Not only do they begin to grow bitter and disillusioned, but they also readily come to the conclusion that everyone’s the same, the whole church family thing is a farce, and they become resentful toward God Himself.

Whether prince or pauper, we are all the sheep of God’s pasture. When those in authority place value on something someone can offer rather than the individual himself, it always ends in disaster because it’s not the way the Word of God tells us the household of faith should operate. As one body, those who can help those who need it, but that does not make them superior to those in need.

While we busy ourselves mimicking the church of Corinth, we should acknowledge that they weren’t held up as an example to be followed, but a cautionary tale to be avoided. They did the same thing two thousand years ago: the rich sitting and congregating with the rich, the poor set apart and looked down upon, and when Paul wrote his letters to them, he gave them no quarter, nor did he excuse their behavior.

As Job’s trial progressed, so did his isolation and loneliness. We are not given to know when his own servant would no longer answer his call, but it likely occurred later than when his hardship commenced. The servant had seen Job’s trials intensify day after day and at some point had concluded that he wasn’t worth the bother. He wasn’t long for this world, so what did it matter if he pretended not to hear his master’s call? Herein lies the difference between a principled, honorable individual and an unethical one.

There is a broader theme here, one we can learn from, because oftentimes the servant takes it upon himself to covet the position of his master, and in so doing uses every opportunity to undermine him. When you see individuals who are meant to be servants disagreeing with the written word of the Master, you know that they are not content being a servant, but desire to usurp the authority of the one whom they claim to serve. They pretend not to hear His voice when He warns them to repent; they ignore His word when it gives explicit instructions about what the office demands, all the while hoping that men will look to them as the authority rather than to God.

I don’t care how well-known, how prominent, or how many titles the individual has assigned himself; if he attempts to downplay, disregard, or usurp the authority of scripture and make it his own, he is to be marked and avoided. He is no longer serving the Master faithfully but attempting to become a master in his own right. Unfortunately for them, there can be only one Master, and anyone other than Christ is a cheap imitation, floundering about, trying to magnify their own relevance at the expense of Jesus.

The one silver lining in this otherwise melancholic situation is that once your fair-weather faux-friends have gone, you realize God remains, and He is sufficient. The way forward for Job was now clear. He saw both the vanity of all things, the faithlessness of friends, family, and servants, and the all-importance of knowing God all at once.

God replaces every bullet point on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Instead of needing self-actualization, God. Instead of needing safety, esteem, or security, God. Instead of needing love from others or a sense of belonging, you have the love of God and know that you belong to Him.

God isn’t just one aspect in the believer’s life; He is everything in the life of the believer. He isn’t just an outer shell covering up a patchwork of hubris, rebellion, disobedience, doubt, and indecision, so those we come in contact with don’t shrink back in horror. When we are born again, we are transformed, made new, emptied of what we once were that we may be filled with Him, His presence, His Spirit, and His purpose for our lives.

Whether it’s Job’s declaration that he knew his Redeemer lives, and one day he would see Him for himself, or Paul’s testimony of having counted all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of the Lord Jesus, both men had come to the same conclusion: God above all! God above my will, my desires, my wants, my needs, and my very life.

All of Him for half of you doesn’t work. Picking up your cross and following after Him on weekends, then doing whatever you want the rest of the week, doesn’t work either. Declaring yourself to be an ambassador of Christ when it costs you nothing, then shrinking away and denying Him like you were Peter by a bonfire at the slightest pushback, means you were never truly His to begin with, because true worship, obedience, and servitude aren’t situational.

Job’s faith in God gave him the eyes to see beyond his present situation. It gave him eyes to see the glory that would come, that once his skin was destroyed, he would see God in His glory and majesty. Faith allows us to see beyond our present struggles and gives us spiritual eyes to see the future glory. Faith doesn’t give us hope for a better tomorrow, but assurance of an eternity in His presence.         

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Job CCVII

 A stranger is a stranger. They don’t know you, you don’t know them, and for the most part, their opinion holds little weight. Your spouse and a stranger can say the same thing, in the same tone, with the same inflection, and the one spoken by your spouse will smart far worse than the words of the stranger.

It’s not the stranger that abandons you, it’s those closest to you. It’s also when you feel the pain of it more thoroughly, because those now pretending not to know you were the selfsame people who sat at your table, ate your food, and enjoyed your company. Job was discovering how fickle his inner circle was, how situational their feigned loyalty and friendship, because those who had once crowded around him, vying for his attention, had now become completely estranged from him.

It was not Job’s choice; it was their choice, and now Job lamented the reality of having had fair-weather friends all along and not realizing it. It’s inevitable that people grow apart as they journey through life. People you once called friends in your teens likely aren’t the same people in your fifties. People move, they get married, they have children, and the friendships you thought would have permanence and be part of your life until its twilight wane, and falter.

What Job was experiencing wasn’t growing apart over time, but abandonment the moment he was no longer the prosperous, powerful man he had been up until his moment of testing came. There isn’t much you can do about choosing your family, but you do have agency when it comes to choosing your friends. Choose wisely; otherwise, when you need them most, they’ll disappear into the ether as though they were never there.

Being abandoned during seasons of trial is not something we fear or concern ourselves with when it comes to God, because He has promised that He will neither leave us nor forsake us. There is steadfastness and permanence in the promises of God, and when He says He changes not, He means it. For those who’ve never been abandoned or forsaken by friends or family, it may sound nice and comforting, but it will not resonate on the level that it will with those who’ve gone through such an experience.

The reason abandonment by those closest to us in our time of need feels so raw and painful is also due to the implied betrayal. In many cases, they don’t just grow indifferent but outright hostile, likely because deep down they know they’re in the wrong, don’t want to admit it, and choose to lash out.  

Only those who’ve truly been hungry understand the value of a warm meal and appreciate it far beyond someone who’s never been forced to miss one, not because they chose to, but because there was nothing to eat, ever will. The same goes for being cold or thirsty, because once you’ve experienced privation of any sort, you become more grateful, thankful, and appreciative when what you were deprived of becomes readily accessible.

My daughters do not appreciate freedom to the same extent I do because all they’ve ever known is freedom. I grew up in a communist country, saw the toll it took on my parents, and experienced the heavy-handed practices of authoritarianism to the point that being left alone by the powers that be and not dictated to regarding the minutest of details regarding my personal life is considered a gift and a grace.

It’s because they’ve never experienced it that a particular segment of the population is endlessly droning on about totalitarian governments and that we’re living in one. Those who come from former communist block countries, who grew up in true totalitarianism, can’t help but roll their eyes and think to themselves, just you wait. If you think this is totalitarianism, when it finally does arrive on our doorstep, you will be stunned into paralysis.

It doesn’t matter who you are; we all filter present experiences through the prism of past experiences. If you’ve ever been bedridden for a prolonged period of time, then when someone you know, whether friend or family, goes through a similar trial, your first impulse is to sympathize and empathize with them rather than try to crack a joke about how it must be fun to just lie around all day.

If they’ve never gone through it, all they see is someone propped up on some pillows, whittling the day away. They don’t see the muscle cramps, the bed sores, and the atrophied muscles, and they do not understand that the comfy bed eventually starts feeling like a prison, one which the individual in question would do anything to escape.

Job had already stated that he would have been a better friend to the three men who were berating him had they been in his situation. He had come to realize that it extended beyond the three to everyone he knew and to everyone he thought he could rely on if ever the need arose. That is a hard pill to swallow for any man, and had Job not had the relationship with God that he did, it could have very well been the nail in his coffin of desperation.

It is a cruelty that cannot be understated, to be abandoned by family, friends, brothers, and acquaintances when you need them the most. Never be stingy with your kindness. Never be stingy with an encouraging word or with providing a shoulder for someone to cry on. It’s those small, random acts of kindness that mean more to those on the receiving end than you will ever know.

All it would have taken for Job to see his world a bit brighter and have some hope infused into his countenance would have been for one of his friends to say, I believe you, I’ll pray with you, for you, intercede on your behalf, and cry out to God because there must be something more to the story than what we currently perceive. Not a high bar, or unachievable ideal by any means, but even so, everyone in Job’s life fell short.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.