Summit

 In the end, it boils down to a simple equation. If you love God more than the thing that’s tempting you, you will resist and endure the temptation. If you love the thing that’s tempting you more than you love God, then you’ll find a reason, an excuse, or a moment that you will insist was a moment of weakness but was, in truth, a moment of opportunity to give in.

After all the excuses, attempted justifications, and exhaustive explanations, one either endures and resists temptation, or they don’t. There’s no middle ground. You either ate the peach cobbler or let it sit right where it was.

We are on a journey to reach the summit of spiritual maturity. Any distraction from that singular goal and pursuit is an impediment and must be done away with, no matter how warm and fuzzy it may make us feel.

Not everything that feels good is good for you. The same goes for things that taste good. It is within the context of what your purpose and desire are that you can determine whether or not something is good for you. If your desire is holiness unto God, if your desire is righteousness and faithfulness, then anything that impedes those things is, by definition, not good for you.

You know, the devil knows, the devil knows that you know, but still, he tries because he’s hoping to catch you off guard so he can convince you what he’s trying to tempt you with isn’t as foul as it is. Once you belong to Christ and remain in Christ, the peace of God will guard your heart and mind.

Knowing this, when one gives into temptation, it speaks to a larger spiritual problem since, if they were in Christ, their heart and mind would have been guarded. It’s when we distance ourselves from the light that what lurks in the dark can more readily seek to devour. It’s when we stray from truth that the seeds of deception can more readily be planted in our hearts.

There is very little the enemy can do if you remain hidden in Christ, and your life is truly His. This is why he gets petty, becoming more of a nuisance than anything harmful to your spiritual man. Don’t get me wrong, he is still up to his old tricks, but when you’ve walked with Christ and have learned to obey in all things, even his worst attacks will seem mild because the fiery darts of the wicked one will be quenched before they can connect.

When we’re not living the lives God commanded us to live, the enemy can set snares and lay in wait. It is when we are not walking in obedience that his attacks succeed in leaving a mark and causing us to stumble. We may get back up, dust ourselves off, and pursue God with a new zeal, but some never do, wallowing in their defeat and allowing the flesh to regain all the ground it had lost to the spiritual man.

The moment you stop living as though you are in constant warfare is when the enemy can advance and overtake you. Even Paul addressed the vanity of being a soldier and attempting to entangle yourself with the affairs of this life, insisting that they were incongruent. You must pick one or the other. You can’t do both; you can’t have both; you can’t pursue both; and you can’t desire both.

With all the evidence, both anecdotal and otherwise, to this day, men still believe they can have divided hearts, divided loyalties, and divided pursuits. It’s akin to half your body pulling you to the left and the other half pulling you to the right. The best you can hope for is that you’ll be rooted to the spot, not giving ground but holding in place. Tragically, more often than not, one half subjugates the other, and since the individual in question wasn’t where he was supposed to be in relation to his spiritual man, the flesh is the dominant half that wins out.

You see it in people who begin with a tiny compromise or the allowance of one pet sin they consider harmless and irrelevant, and the more time passes, the more libertine they get until they’re watching fully grown men engaged in public hedonism while waving rainbow flags.

Sin is a degenerative disease of the soul. Until it is excised it will eat away at your convictions, your principles, and your ethics. Most of the time, what we see displayed on television is the end result of a long process and a downward spiral. No one starts off that broken, that lost, that empty, and that dark, but that’s how they all end up given enough time and no one loving them enough to tell them they’re headed in the wrong direction toward a very bad end.

It’s why, as children of God, we cannot validate, embrace, or celebrate sin because sin leads to ruin every time without fail. That we have neither the courage nor the empathy to tell those in the darkness that there is light, to tell those who are lost that they can be found, to tell those who are ill that they can be healed, is something we will be called to account for. It will be something for which we will be called to answer.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Resistance

 James 1:12, “Blessed is the man who endures temptation; for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him.”

Although up until now, James was focused on trials, what they produce, and how they may appear in the life of the believer, he shifts to temptation and insists that the man who endures temptation is blessed.

For as long as we are in these earthen vessels, temptation is a given. Usually, whenever discussing the topic of temptation, our minds automatically go to where the temptation we endure is the most difficult, like seeing peach cobbler alamode on the menu on the first day of your diet.

We’ve all been there. We know how good it feels to resist the urge to order the cobbler, eat our dry, flavorless eggs, wash them down with a glass of water, pay our bill, and walk away. That feeling, that elation, that moment of having resisted and endured, lasts far longer than the taste of warm peach cobbler and vanilla bean ice cream on your lips.

The enemy’s purpose is to tempt you. Your duty is to endure and resist his attempts at tempting you. Sometimes, it’s not peach cobbler you have to resist, but your own mind when it tells you it’s perfectly reasonable to cut corners, spend less time in the Word, and spend less time with God because you’re a busy little bee, and God knows that you are, so He’s okay with playing second fiddle to your dream of running a hair extension empire.  

Oftentimes, the battles we wage with ourselves, the battles that occur in the mind, are far more difficult than any external temptation the enemy might throw at us. The external temptation you can walk away from. You see a freshly baked pie in the bakery window, and your mouth starts to water, but then you turn and walk away and soon forget about the pie. You can’t walk away from your mind, though. It’s always with you wherever you go, and if you’ve not learned to set your mind on the things above, the thoughts will eat at you like hungry termites at rotten beams.

This is why the devil attacks the mind before assailing the eyes, the ears, or any of the other senses. If your mind is right, if your focus is on Jesus, then whatever the enemy might throw at you will bounce off, and you’ll be stronger for it. If, however, you entertain the thoughts and start playing the what-if game, eventually, when that pie crosses your path, you’ll be sitting there with an empty pie tin and an upset stomach, wondering what happened.

I’ve had enough discussions with individuals who shipwrecked their lives in one way or another to know that the journey from thought to action to everything falling apart is a blur in their minds. They remember entertaining temptation rather than resisting and enduring it, perhaps spending one second too long looking at something they shouldn’t have or allowing an improper conversation to go on longer than it should, then the end result of giving in, regret, and all.

Temptation cannot be avoided altogether. It must be endured. It was impossible to avoid temptation even before the advent of television, the internet, DoorDash, GrubHubs, and smartphones. All these things just made it easier to give in to temptation. Since we can’t avoid it, we must resist it. We must endure temptation in whichever form it may present itself because that’s what we are meant to do.

Yes, measures can be taken wherein you don’t put yourself in the path of temptation from the moment you wake up to when you go back to sleep, but to avoid them altogether is not feasible even if you decide to move out to the hinterlands with nothing but armadillos and porcupine for company.

Self-awareness is a must when it comes to enduring temptation. Know your weaknesses, and do your utmost to shore them up until your weakness is as strong as your strongest strength. Don’t entertain your temptation thinking this time you’ll get the better of it because, the more you entertain it, the weaker you become, and eventually you will give in.

It’s far easier to resist peach cobbler when you see it on the menu but do nothing to advance your desire for it. It’s far harder when you take an order to go, put it in your fridge, and know it's there. Come four am, you’re bleary-eyed and hungry, and the only thing you can think about is the cobbler in your fridge. Don’t bring it home; leave it where it is. That’s worthwhile advice and not just for peach cobbler.

If men understood the gravity of giving in to their temptations, perhaps they wouldn’t be so eager to flirt with them as though they were harmless. The same goes for women; temptation is not gender specific.

But he said he loved me! Really? After two hours, three drinks, and a handful of awkward compliments? You know better, or at least you should, and if you don’t, why not?

Colossians 3:2-7, “Set your mind on things above, and no ton things on the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory. Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. Because of these things the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience, in which you yourselves once walked when you lived in them.”

If you go looking for excuses, you’ll find them. If you go looking for temptations to fall into, there are plenty to be had, but blessed is the man who endures temptation.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Made

 Ever wonder why some people are made great in their trials, and some are wholly unmade? It’s not as though the trials differed all that much from one person to the other. There are the exceptions, as there always are when someone gets diagnosed with Gaucher disease or Barth syndrome, but even then, though the disease might be rare, the emotions the individual goes through and the future they have to confront are similar.

The answer lies in how they react to the trial or hardship they’ve been confronted with. You can see a diagnosis as a death sentence or as a stopwatch. You can perceive it as having been granted a certain amount of time to do what you need to do or as a reason to wallow in self-pity and regret until your light fades and you are no more.

I have a friend who was given six months to live eight years ago. In his mind, he had six months to make sure that his wife and then two boys were taken care of when he was gone, and he spent the time he didn’t spend with them, building his business. Six months turned into a year, and a year turned into two. They had a baby girl and another baby boy two years later, and his business was still growing, as was his family, and he lived his life the best way he could.

He and his wife now have four children; he sold his business this past summer and plans to start another business come the new year.

If he would have just given up, thrown in the towel, and found a comfy bed in which to expire, he would have had nothing to show for the eight years of life he’d have wasted not doing anything but waiting to die.

The same logic can be applied to many things in life, including the timing of Christ’s return. Either we shift it in neutral and coast because someone on Facebook said Jesus was returning next week, and we feel as though there’s nothing we can do in such a short time, or we downshift and goose the gas because we want to go a bit faster since time is finite.

While the enemy and his minions are planning and executing the downfall of decency, we go from waiting for a date to waiting for another date, unwilling to engage the enemy or resist him in any way.

Last I checked, we’re all still here, except, perhaps, for that one guy who said he was getting raptured last week and is likely hiding in the woods behind his house until a search party finds him eating Spam out of the can and reading the left behind series by candlelight.

Have we ever stopped to consider that these constant delay tactics, this perpetual running out of the clock, are purposeful? Have we allowed for the possibility that keeping people on the sidelines, doing nothing but waiting on a date in the near distant future, is something the enemy is content with?

What were you supposed to be doing but failed to do because you were consumed with a date? The race is over when you cross the finish line. The battle is won when the enemy is defeated. Can something that keeps you from finishing, conquering, or vanquishing be of divine origin?

It’s not that I’m trying to ruffle any feathers, but it’s been a few days since the last rapture deadline, and with everything going on in the world, another is soon to follow.

Again, it all comes down to how you see this season the world has entered into and what you perceive your role in it to be. If you see it as an opportunity to further the kingdom of God, then you are not fearful but hopeful. You are not anxious but excited.

It’s not about validation or going on an I told you so tour; it’s about people being more open to the message of the cross because they realize that whatever this is down here, it’s so far from heaven it’s looking more like hell than anything.

The hope of Christ is all the more vivid amid hopelessness. People you would have never thought would respond positively to the message of the cross will do so as they begin to see the vanity of the life they’ve built for themselves start to shake and crumble.

Anyone who studies church history with any level of dedication can readily tell you that every time there was an increase in persecution, there was an increase in the growth of the church body. Hardships do not weaken a church; they strengthen it. It is a longstanding, provable fact going back to the primary church, which was scattered abroad, and went about preaching a risen Christ. The intent was to make the church weak, silent, and afraid. The outcome was the message of the cross spreading across the globe like wildfire.

What the enemy intends for evil, God will use for good. It’s happened before and will again because God is consistent. That singular truth should be enough to give us peace in this world of chaos. That one piece of knowledge should provide us with the boldness and courage to face tomorrow, knowing He is already there, making a way, fully aware of what is to come.

We are watching the world come apart at the seams in real time. We can react in one of two ways: either rejoice, seeing it as an opportunity to preach the good news to those who would otherwise not have heard it, or as a cumbersome burden we want to be rid of as soon as possible. I’m well aware of which the flesh would choose. The question is, which would God choose?

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Parsed

 Since, for many in this generation, thinking is a painful endeavor, and applying logic to anything more nuanced and parsed than snow is cold and the sun is hot risks convulsions and brain melt, we’ve categorized everything into good or bad based on a superficial glance if that. We conclude that one thing is better than the other without considering any other relevant data than what we see before us.

 Of course, being young is better than being old, say the young in unison, but the old know there’s a tradeoff as you progress through life, and you exchange your vigor and pip for wisdom and forethought. You may have a preference, but determining that one is better than the other takes much contemplation and not a little lateral thinking on your part.

I remember being young. It wasn’t as fun as advertised. I got picked on at school, I never had any money to buy what I wanted, I was ever dependent on my parents if I needed to go anywhere, and I was constantly being told what to do. None of it was to sit by the palm tree and enjoy a refreshing lemonade. It was usually something involving manual labor, whether to vacuum the shag carpet that would never get clean or helping grandma cut the heads off fish for fishhead stew. There’s a reason I’m not a fan of fish; I had my life’s fill by the time I was ten.

Since I was young, I got the privilege of jumping into the dumpsters when we went collecting aluminum cans in the neighborhood, and even though I’d told both my parents and grandparents that I was being picked on because I wore pin-striped slacks, my grandmother had hand sown to school the thought of paying twelve bucks for a pair of Bugle Boys was anathema to all four of them.

My grandmother’s take was that it was their loss for not appreciating quality; my mom’s take was that we needed the money for food; my dad said it would make me stronger, and my grandfather, always the softest heart in the bunch, said he’d see what he could do to buy me a pair of real, honest-to-goodness jeans.

A few days later, after turning in our cans, my grandpa took me to the Price Club up the street and bought me a pair of jeans and a Vuarnet shirt with the graphic of a pair of sunglasses and a beach on the back. I still remember the day. It ended up being something shy of twenty-five dollars, all told, but come the next morning, when I was getting ready for school, I felt like a million bucks.

The bullying started again when the kids realized I only had the one pair of jeans and the one cool shirt, but you took your lumps, and you kept going. That’s why words could never hurt me as an adult. I learned they didn’t hurt me as a child.

It’s easy to be flippant about classifying everything, putting them in their individual rubric. More often than not, we use worldly metrics to determine which rubric something goes into, whether being rich is better than being poor, being thin is better than being fat, being handsome is better than being ugly or being young is better than being old.

No one bothers to ask who determines the standard of beauty or who gets to define handsome, nor do they ever tell you what skinny means because at a certain level of skinny, your organs start to shut down, and you starve to death. That’s just hyperbole because you’re fat! No, a woman who had a following of a million plus people recently starved to death because she was on a raw vegan diet, and surprise, surprise, she wasn’t getting enough calories to keep her alive.

You are not handsome or ugly, pretty or unattractive, smart or dumb, skinny or fat; you are God’s creation, fearfully and wonderfully made, and that is no small thing. If only you could see yourself as God sees you and understand the love with which He directs your path, you would nevermore doubt, fear, or wonder what tomorrow will bring. You will know His presence in the moment and understand that He will make a way regardless of everyone around you telling you there is no way.

What’s the point? The point is don’t look upon every trial as a net negative or every blessing as a net positive. Take the time to analyze the situation as it presents itself and use wisdom to determine how you should feel about what’s happening and whether you should embrace it rather than reject it.

Even when something you’re going through cannot be seen in a positive light no matter how hard you try, it may just be the timing of the thing rather than the thing itself. You may not be able to see it today, but tomorrow is another day, and you will have an entirely new perspective on your situation.

Romans 8:28, “And we know that things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”

We start getting a hitch in our giddy up when we fail to remember that it’s according to His purpose that all things work together for good to those who love God, and not according to our purpose. What you see for your future and what God sees for your future are often very different things, but if you belong to Him, you must submit to His guiding hand, His will, and His purpose for your life, and not your own.

His purpose and your purpose are usually at odds. His purpose will always be greater and more meaningful than yours, but the flesh is myopic by its nature, and it consistently fails to see the beauty of God’s plan.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Haven

 Whether it’s fear of losing it or fear of not having enough of it, there’s always something to keep most people awake at night. There’s always something just sitting there, waiting in the wings to disturb your peace, to rob you of your joy, and to consume you with worry and fear.

The enemy doesn’t like it when you have peace and joy and are satisfied in Christ because it means he has fewer weapons in his arsenal that will work against you. If you are complete, if you are satisfied, if you have need of nothing even though in the world’s eyes you have nothing, there isn’t much the enemy can do to make you anxious or fearful.

Your safe heaven isn’t wealth or poverty. Your safe heaven isn’t the spider hole you dug in your backyard that one time your neighbor let you borrow his bobcat, nor is it the bucket of potatoes au gratin you bought off Jim Baker ten years ago. Your safe haven is found in the promises God made to His children that He will neither leave them nor forsake them, that He would be with them wherever they went, and present whenever they called.

Every time the world gets a bee in its bonnet and war seems imminent, the old band gets back together, and they start playing the same old classics. Buy gold here, buy gruel here, get your atomic blankets and radiation-repelling underoos while supplies last. If they were just late-night infomercials, I wouldn’t have an issue, but these are supposed spiritual authorities who are trying to sell you everything and the kitchen sink while omitting the most crucial thing of all. I may have missed it while trying to open a bucket of stewed peas with a screwdriver, but I never once heard a call to repentance in between all the limited-time offers of buying one and getting one half off.

Are you saying we shouldn’t prepare? I’m saying you shouldn’t let fear motivate you, and you shouldn’t let people who would use, fuel, and intensify your fear to profit do so.

It’s gotten tiresome seeing the golden oldies playing the golden oldies on repeat and everyone getting excited about it all over again. If what you are consuming spiritually is making you anxious, if it’s giving you sleepless nights, and you’re jumping out of your skin at the sound of your own breathing, then it’s not of God. There, I said it, and I’m not going to retract it.

God tells His children what the future holds, not to scare them near death, but to reaffirm that if He knows what the future holds, then He knows His children’s needs in the midst of that future.

Matthew 6:31-34, “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”

God knows that you need all these things, and unlike the guy trying to sell you ten dollars’ worth of creamed corn for sixty bucks, God will still feed you if your card declines. In point of fact, He doesn’t even require your credit card information, nor is He quick to let you know that you can cover the cost of the overpriced slop you’ll likely clog your kitchen sink with for three easy payments of $33.33 because it’s the number of the trinity or some such spiritual innuendo they tried to force in there just to make it Jesus-approved.

We have step-by-step instructions on weathering any hardship, time of trial, or travail from Jesus Himself, but for most, it’s not complicated enough. Do you mean to tell me all I have to do is seek the kingdom of God first and foremost? Yes. Well, that just seems too easy. What about biohazard suits and underground tunnel systems? Didn’t find those things itemized in the Bible. The seeking the kingdom thing, though, that’s in there. Start with that first, and see where it takes you.

All kidding aside, you can be the most prepared prepper to ever prep in the history of prepping, and if you’ve not sought the kingdom of God and His righteousness, you are ill-prepared for what is coming. You cannot bypass and circumvent Biblical instruction and then expect things to work out well.

You can’t shake your fists at the heavens, demanding to know why God wasn’t there when you didn’t do the thing He said you needed to do to ensure that He would be. Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. The onus here is on you and I. It is something we must do, not something that can be outsourced or forced upon us.

Jesus told us what we needed to do; now, we just need to go ahead and do it. As long as you make people who prey on your fear rich, they will continue to prey on your fear. That’s the way it’s always been and will continue to be because human nature is what human nature is. At some point, however, you’ll have to wonder why the people telling you the sea levels are about to rise are buying beachfront properties.

How come they’re eating steak while you’re trying to keep the down pureed lima beans they sold you for the price of a small used sedan?

With love in Christ, 

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Perspective

 Have you ever had someone you considered of marginal intelligence say something so profound that it stopped you in your tracks? It’s not that you considered the individual unintelligent or incapable of deep thought, but rather the heights to which they soared with the handful of words they put together were so resounding and wise that it was uncharacteristic to the utmost.

Paul, I get. He was raised from early youth to be a Pharisee. He studied under Gamaliel, arguably the greatest legal teacher of his time, so when something brimming with wisdom leaps off the page, you take it for granted. To a certain extent, it’s even expected.

James, however, was not raised among the scholarly and, given his father’s profession, spent most of his adolescence among sawdust and wood chips. I’m sure he knew how to use a plane and swing a mallet, but as far as swimming in profundity is concerned, I don’t think it was a regular occurrence.

I’ll type out the passage I’m referring to, then tell me if you get it.

James 1:9-10, “Let the lowly brother glory in his exaltation, but the rich in his humiliation because as a flower of the field he will pass away.”

The interplay and juxtaposition are something worth pondering because the simple profundity of these two verses is astounding. What James is saying is that if you are lowly, if you are poor, if you feel like life’s knocked out your teeth and kicked sand in your eye, you should take a breath, dust yourself off, and glory in your exaltation. The world threw its worst at you and you’re still standing. The storm battered you and tossed you about, but while others sank into the deep, your head is still above water.

Don’t let the poverty define you, but rather your resilience. Don’t let the need define you, but rather His comfort, peace, and provision in the midst of your trial.

At the same time and in the same breath, James focuses on the rich, reminding them that though they may have amassed fortunes, they are still mortal. They will wither and pass away like a flower of the field, and no amount of money, power, or influence will be able to delay that reality. It’s your time when it’s your time, and what you do with your time until it’s your time determines the rest of time.

James doesn’t hate the one and love the other or despise the one while embracing the other. He is trying to bring perspective to both and reveals the roadmap that can bring both rich and poor to a baseline and even keel. The poor he wants to raise up out of the dirt; the rich, he wants to bring down out of the clouds because, in the end, we all end up in a box in the ground. Sure, some boxes might be prettier than others, but it’s still a box covered with dirt, waiting patiently to be invaded by worms.

Another noteworthy aside that many seem to gloss over is that James instructs both the poor and the rich to glory, but for different reasons. While the lowly brother is instructed to glory in his exaltation, the rich are instructed to glory in his humiliation. It’s one thing to have never had more than a handful of dirt and a mortgage; it’s another to have had the world and lost it all.

For some, the test is how they cling to God in their lack, in their need, in their poverty, and their lowliness. For others, the test is how they cling to God when all that they amassed disappears in a puff of smoke, and everything they thought would carry them through life is gone in an instant.

Job was rich; Job loved God; Job lost everything; Job still loved God. It wasn’t the wealth that was keeping Job close to God; it was his love for God that was keeping Job close to God.

There are poor people who fail the test, and there are rich people who fail the test. It’s not about the dollar value; it’s about the state of men’s hearts. You can be poor and bitter, stingy, selfish, and self-obsessed, and you can be rich and kind and generous and sympathetic to the plight of others.

It’s not the possessions that make it easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter the kingdom of God; it’s the attitude some of them allow to creep into their hearts, wherein they need nothing more than what they have. It’s not easy to humble oneself in the sight of the Lord when, up until that point, everyone else has been bowing and scraping to you.

I’ve known predatory poor people who preyed on other poor people, and I’ve known fair and honest rich people who paid you an honest wage for a hard day’s work. If you’ve ever been an immigrant, I’m sure you have stories of your own, but it wasn’t rich people who stiffed my dad for six months of his wages when we first arrived in America; it was poor Romanians who saw an opportunity to take advantage of my dad’s naiveté.

Ecclesiastes 5:19, As for every man to whom God has given riches and wealth, and given him power to eat of it, to receive his heritage and rejoice in his labor – this is a gift of God.”

The world is not divided between rich and poor or black and white; it’s not divided between cat people and dog people or vegetarians and carnivores, although, you know. It’s split between saved and unsaved. It’s the only metric that counts. It’s the only metric that matters. It’s the only metric that has eternal consequences and ramifications.

Whether you are rich or poor doesn’t matter. Whether you are saved or not does.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Asaph

 If prosperity and worldly possessions are how you measure the favor and blessing of God, then you’re likely as troubled in your spirit as Asaph was when he wrote the seventy-third Psalm, at least the first few verses. His angst was severe enough that he had to sit down and write out what he was experiencing because he looked upon the wicked and saw them prospering, and nobody bothered to tell him he was using the wrong metrics.

I’m not saying it’s easy to get away from the mindset of equating prosperity with God’s favor. I’m saying it’s necessary if you want to keep from falling into the snare of allowing for things in your life that God abhors simply because another who is living in sin just bought their dream home for cash.

In his brutal honesty, Asaph even confessed that his feet almost stumbled, not because the way was too difficult or the attacks were so great, but because he was envious of the boastful, and he saw the prosperity of the wicked.

It’s a good lesson to learn early, basic as it may be, but don’t worry about how others are walking; worry about how you are. If you look ahead of you and the path is clear, and there are no potholes, cracks, slippery bits, or obstructions, then take the time to warn someone that they’re about to fall into a hole. If you haven’t mapped out your journey, if you don’t know what’s waiting around the bend, if you haven’t taken the time to see where you are planting your feet, worry about you first.

It’s not selfish; it’s practical. It’s the same reason airlines insist that if you are traveling with a minor or someone in need of assistance and there’s an issue with the cabin pressure, you should put your mask on first and then assist the person next to you. Why? Because if you’re trying to help them, and you pass out while attempting to, then both of you are in danger of losing your lives.

It’s the reason I’m less than enthusiastic about new believers spending all their time witnessing and none of it building up their faith. I understand that it’s like seeing colors for the first time, breathing fresh air, or hearing music, but to drag others out of the deep, your feet must first be planted on solid ground, a solid foundation from which you will not be moved, shaken, or otherwise made to stumble.

Psalm 73:2-3, “But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled; my steps had nearly slipped. For I was envious of the boastful, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.”

Although he doesn’t specify, odds are this took place during Asaph’s spiritual infancy. I am confident in making this statement because the more you grow in God, the more you mature and become seasoned, and the more your perspective shifts regarding what can be deemed a blessing or a grace. The more you grow in God, the less the things of the world matter, and the weights and measures you use to define His favor transform.

The way you see everything changes when you are in the presence of God. How you judge everything changes when you spend time with Him and receive the metanoia He promises to those who would humble themselves and seek His face.

Psalm 73:16-17, “When I thought how to understand this, it was too painful for me – until I went into the sanctuary of God; then I understood their end.”

And there it is. Asaph’s epiphany, his Eureka moment, the instant everything made sense. He was trying to make sense of why the wicked prospered; he was trying to make sense of why bad things seemed to happen to good people, as the saying goes, and while he was away from the sanctuary of God, while he was removed from God’s presence, his logical mind couldn’t reconcile the situation.

Just thinking about it all was too painful for him until he went into the sanctuary of God, and his mind expanded and transformed and was renewed. He understood the end of the wicked; he saw the temporary nature of their frivolity and glee. His perception shifted from the temporal to the eternal, and he became a man at peace.

How do you see what you see? What angle and vantage point do you see it from? Do you compare yourself with the giants in the land, or do you compare the giants in the land to the God you serve?

If you’re comparing yourself to the giants in the land, if you try to match your strength to theirs, you will live in perpetual fear and defeat because everyone knows you can’t take on a giant. If, however, you’re comparing the giants in the land to your God and walk in His power and authority, then you’ll stand before them with a slingshot and some stones and be at peace, fearless, and strong because you know the battle isn’t yours but His.

Everything the world projects is an illusion. Their joy is a mask, their treasures fool’s gold, and their temptations sorrowful ruin. This is well-known and evident, yet so many continue to be seduced by it. The day approaches when the godless will be brought to desolation as in a moment, and they will be utterly consumed with terrors. The godly will rejoice because they will know the strength of their God and the refuge and safety they have under the shadow of His wings.

Psalm 73:27-28, “For indeed, those who are far from You shall perish; You have destroyed all those who desert You for harlotry. But it is good for me to draw near to God; I have put my trust in the Lord God, that I may declare all Your works.”

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.