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. 

Job LXII

 There is bound to be someone in everyone’s life who is quick to remind them of who they were before they encountered Christ. Whether it’s a misguided attempt to keep you humble or they’re just trying to bring you down a peg, when someone insists on dragging up who you were and inferring that it’s still who you are, your only reaction should be to continue picking up your cross, walking humbly with your Lord, and working out your salvation with fear and trembling.

Trying to convince someone that you’re a different person when they’re set on remembering you as you were, without allowing for the possibility that you are a new creature, is an exercise in futility. They will not see you as God sees you, as having been reconciled to Him, because they don’t want to.

In the early 90s, our ministry funded, participated in, and put on a lot of crusades in Romania. Communism had fallen, the gospel was free to be preached wherever someone would rent you a hall, and it didn’t take a genius to see that the harvest field was plentiful. Since it was not about an individual person but rather about preaching the gospel to the lost and highlighting Jesus, we made use of local pastors and preachers whenever possible. More often than not, my grandfather was there as an auxiliary, either praying for people or passing out Bibles, but as far as the preaching went, he was happy to let the local brethren do the heavy lifting.

On one such night, we were in Tirgu Frumos, back before they fixed the roads a good hour’s drive from Botosani, and we’d just gotten done with a crusade where the local church pastor had preached. He was a man well into his fifties, and just by the look of him, you could tell he had a past. His nose had been broken at some point and hadn’t been set right, likely more than once, since it was ridged and flattened, giving him the look of a bulldog. He was broad-chested, with that hunched-over appearance guys who wrestle tend to adopt, and if not for the light in his eyes, one would be hard-pressed to stay on the same side of the sidewalk if they saw him coming from the opposite direction.

As we were shaking hands and saying our goodbyes, getting ready to go back home, a man walked up to the pastor and poked a finger into his chest.

“What makes you better than me? I remember when we used to get drunk together, and I couldn’t even hold a candle to you; what gives you the right? How do I know this isn’t all a farse? Are we just supposed to take your word that you’ve changed?”

Every couple of words, as if to emphasize his point, the man would poke the pastor in the chest. His voice got progressively louder, and his jabs more violent, but the pastor didn’t move; he didn’t back away or try to constrain the man and his stabbing finger in any way.

 When the man stopped long enough to catch his breath, the pastor looked into his eyes and, in a soft voice, said, “You and I both know that if I were still the man I used to be, you’d have a broken finger and a few less teeth. Now do you want to have a conversation, or do you want to keep poking me in the chest?”

I could see the wheels spinning, the man’s realization that had this now pastor been the man he’d known before, he likely wouldn’t be standing. taking a step back and arching his brows, he said, “I’ll take the conversation if you don’t mind.”

When we surrender, submit, repent, and begin the journey of denying ourselves and picking up our crosses, we’re not simply identifying as Christians; we are becoming Christ-like in every area of our lives. We are being transformed from glory to glory into the image of Christ. If the extent of our Christianity is claiming that we are Christian, while none of the transformation is taking place within and without, we will be counted among those who say Lord, Lord, but whom He never knew.

There is no sin in remembering where we once were and acknowledging how far God has brought us. Every journey has a starting point, even the journey of faith. We don’t look back at the starting line with longing or a desire to return to it but merely to gauge how far we’ve come while keeping our eyes firmly affixed to the finish line.

Even one such as Paul wasn’t shy about owning up to what he had been, admitting in his letter to the Galatians that he once persecuted without mercy the church of God and did his best to destroy it. He could have obfuscated or whitewashed his past, but what would be the point? He was no longer the man he had been, and now, rather than seek to destroy it, he made it his life’s mission to grow the church and comfort the brethren. That’s what God does. That is the transformative power of His presence in the heart of man, and to take that glorious transformation and say it’s no longer required, but that all we need do is say a few words and raise a hand at a crusade is not only foolhardy but unbiblical.

Matthew 7:21-23, “Not everyone who says to me ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’”

What does this have to do with Job? Only that his relationship with God and the faith that he’d built up over the years aided him in weathering the storm when it would have utterly broken any other man and brought them to the point of sinning against God with their lips. It’s who you are in Christ that will give you the strength to abide, endure, and persevere, not who you are in yourself.

It doesn’t matter how tough and strong we think we are in our constitution, how high of a pain threshold we have, or how unaffected we are by the circumstances of life; without God, everyone breaks at some point. With God, however, all things are possible.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Job LXI

I can’t say I’ve ever been so low as to curse the day I was born. Job was. It’s easy to sit in judgment and find reasons to look down on the man or say he was being overly dramatic, but if you’ve never walked a mile in someone’s shoes, then your judgment is unfounded. I can’t quantify another’s pain, nor can you quantify mine. It is relational to me alone, and only God knows it fully. Each of us carries a unique burden of pain, a weight only we and God can truly understand.

Sometimes, a man’s countenance and what’s going on in his heart are two wholly different things. It’s guaranteed that you’ve run across someone who put on a brave face and smiled at you while their heart was in turmoil, a vortex of grief and pain that had you seen, you would have recoiled from. On occasion, you get the sense of it, whether it’s a look in their eyes or the fact that the smile is contrary to their overall countenance, but more often than not, we ignore it because we all have our own problems, our own grief, our own disappointments in life, and we’ve been conditioned to turn off our empathy for those around us while expecting them to show it at the slightest need.

No man is an island, but those who deem themselves the overlords of molding society would love nothing more. It’s easier to control someone who has no tribe, no friends, no one they can rely upon, confide in, or pour their hearts out to. They want to be the ones you run to, and they’re quick to offer you the drug cocktail du jour to numb you to the point of indifference toward everything that’s going on around you. Take this fistful of pills, and you won’t feel the grief anymore. Will it make it go away? No, it will still be there, but rather than dealing with it, going through it, letting time heal the wound, we’ll just numb all of you, and you’ll feel nothing at all. Of course, there’s a cost; there always is, and in this case, the cost is your lucidity, your self-awareness, your sense of purpose, and your peace.

Counterfeit peace or counterfeit joy are just that, counterfeit. They’re fake, they’re not real, and as soon as you run out of your prescription, the grief returns fivefold because it’s been building up with no pressure valve to release it and no true comfort to lessen it. What the world offers is not a cure but a way to manage it. The only one who can deliver on the promise of healing a broken heart is God, even if it takes time to do it. Wounds take time to heal. When you cut your finger, even if you wash out the wound, lather it in Neosporin, and bandage it, it won’t heal overnight, even though the healing process has already begun. You don’t go back to the wound, open it up, squeeze the sides, and make it bleed every few hours, wondering why it’s not healing. You do what you can do to keep it from getting infected, then let time do its thing and scab it over, then let it heal altogether, then when it’s done, you’ll have the scar to remind you of it for the rest of your days. Healing takes time, but it does come.

Scars remind us of the wounds we’ve suffered and the valleys God has carried us through. They’re a permanent reminder that God can bind up the wound and heal the broken heart because He’s already done it, and we carry the evidence of it with us throughout.

We tend to hide our scars, not realizing they make us who we are. Our scars are a testament to all that God has delivered us from, and they are not something to be ashamed or embarrassed of but rather something to showcase as evidence of His unwavering faithfulness.

Every scar I have directly correlates to an event in my life, whether for good or ill, depending on how I look at it, and each one is a constant reminder that though it wasn’t easy, God got me through it when everyone looking from the outside in had written me off already. This goes for spiritual scars as well as physical ones. Life is a tapestry of joy and pain, victories and defeats, times of plenty and times of famine, and each thread makes up a whole, a complete picture that, looking back on, one can clearly see the hand and providence of God throughout.

When you’re in the middle of the ocean, bobbing along on the waves, doing everything you can just to keep your head above water, it’s difficult to be introspective. You’re in survival mode, and everything you do is solely focused on staying alive. Eventually, after the lifeboat arrives and throws you a life preserver after you’re dragged on board, have a moment to catch your breath and know that you are safe, you get a chance to reflect and consider how much worse it could have been had the lifeboat not arrived when it did.

It’s only in our day and age that people turn around and sue individuals who save them from drowning or burning, citing that they were too rough in their efforts, but any rightly thinking, reasonable, logical individual would only show gratitude for having been saved, even if they got a bruise on their hip from being dragged into a boat, or out of a burning building.

Whenever God delivers you from a situation or a predicament you know full well you could have never delivered yourself from, the only attitude you should have is one of gratitude and thankfulness for His intervention. When I know that of my own accord, through my own strength, and by my own wisdom, I could not have navigated a situation satisfactorily, yet God intervened and made a way when there seemed to be none, anything less than me falling to my knees and thanking Him for His intervention is unseemly and less than He deserves. Gratitude is not just a feeling; it’s a way of acknowledging the divine intervention in our lives.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.  

Job LX

 Tomorrow, my youngest is turning seven. It puts a lot into perspective. It’s not that you don’t notice you’re getting older if you don’t have children. There will always be the odd gray hair or the rickety back to let you know you’re getting on in years, but when you have children, it’s a direct and constant reminder of the passing of time. Tempus Fugit, indeed, like it was doing industrial strength speed and washing it down with a six-pack of Red Bull.

The more they grow, the older you get because nothing stops time except for a dirt nap, and in that case, time stops only for the one in the ground. It goes on for everyone else.

It’s odd that while generally speaking, life is a short and fleeting thing, there are moments in life that seem to transpire in slow motion, wherein an hour feels like a day and a day feels like a year. It’s never when we’re laughing, smiling, enjoying the sun on our faces and the breeze in our hair, or in my case, my shaven scalp. Those days seem to zip by, and you look back on that five-day trip four days in and realize that it’s almost over, done with, and you’ll have to get back on that plane, likely with the same people, because most of them bought the same five-day package, and return to packing lunches, school drop off lines, dentist appointments, violin and cello practice, working your first job, then your second job, wondering if you could fit in a third job but just part-time because you want the kids to remember who you are and not call the police when you wander into the house exhausted.

The coo-coo clock doesn’t go any faster or any slower; it keeps perfect time, yet depending on what we’re going through at the time, you wonder where the time went or can’t believe it’s only been three minutes since the last time you looked at your watch. Yes, I know most people don’t have watches anymore, except for those thrall collars that tell them they need to walk three thousand more steps, go to the bathroom, drink more water, and breathe; that last one’s important. Don’t forget to breathe.

How did we manage before we were so laden with gadgets that we emanate low-frequency radiation even when we’re not around them? Don’t get me wrong, I like the convenience of not having to trek to an outhouse in the middle of the night or empty a chamber pot every morning, but what was meant to be a convenience has now become an obsession, an addiction, a prison cell without bars, to the point that if we wind up in an area without bars for more than thirty seconds, we start to sweat, and think it’s the end of the world. You’re three minutes from home, and you’ve driven the same road a thousand times, you’ll be okay. When what was sold as a tool to make your life easier turns into an albatross around your neck, without which you don’t feel normal or at ease, you are no longer mastering the tool; the tool is mastering you.

Job had none of the distractions we’ve become accustomed to. He was alone with his grief, with his pain, with the ever-present reality of his loss, and it’s very likely the days dragged on at a snail’s pace for him. It’s unlikely that time flies by when all you have is a potsherd with which to scratch at yourself and a heap of ashes upon which to lay your head.

Even when his friends showed up, they could do nothing more than sit with him in silence, seeing that his grief was very great. How do you console a man who was on top of the world one day, then the next, all he has left is the pain with which he has to contend?

There’s pain, then there’s pain. Physical pain is one thing; the pain of the heart is something wholly different. If your joints ache on a given morning, you can pop a couple of aspirin or lather yourself in icy hot and make it through the day, but when your heart is broken and shattered, there is no remedy for it but God.

Men try to find other ways to mute or numb the pain of the heart, as they have since the beginning of time, whether giving themselves over to wine, crawling into a bottle, taking pills and powders that are likelier to kill them than make them feel better because that soul-crushing pain of the heart is so unbearable as to make any physical pain pale in comparison.

For many, just having one of the things that happened to Job happen to them would be enough to throw them into an endless spiral of self-destruction, never mind loss upon loss, grief upon grief, and pain upon pain.

Job was within his rights to lament. He was within his rights to grieve and pour out what he’d been holding in for so many days.

Oftentimes, we have unrealistic expectations of those whom God has called to service. We expect them to be superhuman, beyond feeling or emotion, always rising above the circumstances of their existence, and when they do show emotion, when they mourn, and weep, and cry out, we think less of them.  

God never called anyone to be unfeeling, emotionless, or robotic; He called them to be obedient. Rather than look down on a brother who is grieving a loss while continuing to walk in obedience, we should encourage them, be there for them, and comfort them because even in their pain, they’re doing what God called them to do.

My grandfather took my grandmother’s passing hard. She’d been the love of his life, and when she died, a piece of him died with her. While still in mourning, even before we had the wake, a lady from Kansas came to visit because she’d heard about the ministry and she was in the area. We honored her request and gave her our apartment address; even in the midst of all the tumult, my grandfather and I made time for her, and we spent a good thirty minutes talking; we said a prayer, and she left. We thought nothing of it, busy making the arrangements to ship my grandmother back to Romania, which in itself required jumping through so many hoops you’d think you were in the circus. A month or so later, we got a letter in the mail from the aforementioned lady informing us that she was underwhelmed by the experience, didn’t feel welcome when she visited, and that we could have been more hospitable.

If she hadn’t known of the situation and that my grandmother was lying in a casket at a funeral home, I would have seen my way to being more gracious in my response, but she did; it was the first thing I informed her of when she walked into our apartment.

I understand that this may come as a shock to some, but it’s not always about you. The world doesn’t revolve around your happiness, and sometimes, the people you interact with who seem distant or distracted are going through their own version of hell and doing their best to just keep it together.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.