Job saw in part, and he understood in part. He had no knowledge of Jesus or what He would ostensibly do in order to redeem mankind and reconcile humanity to God. If in his limited understanding he was able to attain blamelessness and uprightness, we who are privy to the Christ and all He has done for us, we who have limitless resources regarding salvation at our fingertips, we who have the written Word, have no excuse for not pressing in, growing in Him, knowing Him, and being faithful to the end.
If only we could learn patience, kindness, goodness,
faithfulness, gentleness, love, and self-control from books or workshops. We
know what the fruits of the Spirit are, but they are not acquired simply by
being aware of them or by some intense concentration exercises. They are
birthed in us by the process of daily crucifying the old man and putting to
death the deeds of the flesh. It is an exhaustive, often painful process, and
not something that happens overnight or without exertion on our part.
It is a war within one’s own mind and heart, wherein we
wrench ourselves from the comforts of the status quo and take a step of faith
into that new life where Christ is King and Lord over all that we are, all that
we do, all that we desire, and all that we pursue. There’s the easy way, then
there’s the right way, and the right way isn’t easy, at least as far as the
flesh is concerned. Not only are we starving the flesh of the things it
previously reveled in, but we are actively mortifying it. The flesh will
resist, just as anything that understands the existential nature of the battle
raging within will, and if we show the flesh mercy or give it an inch, it will
take a mile and drag us back to the dungeon and shackles from which we were set
free.
Job 7:11-16, “Therefore I will not restrain my mouth; I will
speak with the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my
soul. Am I a sea, or a sea serpent, that You have set a guard over me? When I
say, ‘My bed will comfort me, my couch will ease my complaint,’ Then You scare
me with dreams and terrify me with visions so that my soul chooses strangling
and death rather than my body. I loathe my life; I would not live forever. Let
me alone, for my days are but a breath.’”
By this point, Job was no longer addressing Eliphaz; he was
addressing God. After months of suffering, his entire outlook had darkened,
having come to the point of seeing no reason for living, no hope for redress,
and no silver lining in the endless night of his torment. Part of him wanted to
restrain his tongue. However, it had come to the point that he needed to speak
with the anguish of his spirit, to release the pressure, to verbalize what he
had been internalizing for months, and to try to process his current state.
There are those who speak their pain the moment they feel it
and those who bottle it up to the point that they feel like they are going to
explode. I must confess, I fall in the camp of the latter, not because of any
misplaced sense of masculinity or because men shouldn’t cry, but because it’s
my nature. You take life as it comes, rejoice when there is no pain, and grit
your teeth and press on when there is. There’s something to be said for
stoicism in the face of adversity, but everyone has their breaking point, the
proverbial straw that breaks the camel’s back even though a camel is sturdy
enough to carry supersized Western tourists through the desert without missing
a beat.
The danger in bottling up your emotions and pushing down your
hurt is that there is a good likelihood of overacting to something
insignificant in a wholly unjustified manner because of all the pent-up
emotions you’ve been trying to keep caged. When that moment comes, it will
likely be toward someone who had nothing to do with the roiling sentiments
you’ve been trying to suppress. They’ll just be a convenient outlet and likely
undeserving of the flood of emotions they’re about to get drowned in because
the dam broke.
Job had been bottling it up for months on end, and with each
passing day, his outlook on the future as it related to him as an individual
grew ever more stark. Time had taken its toll, and we see Job going from saying
shall we indeed accept good things from God and shall we not accept adversity,
to saying, I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.
Months had passed, and Job was still in the dark as to why
all of this was happening to him. His health wasn’t getting any better, and to
top it all off, he was having terrifying dreams and visions he assumed were
from God but which were not. Satan had been given free reign over Job, allowed
to do his worst except for taking his life, and the dreams and visions that
assailed him were another layer in the enemy’s plan to compel Job to relinquish
his integrity and surrender his faith.
Just because God allows something, it does not necessarily
mean He is the originator of it. By the same token, just because one has a
dream or a vision, it does not mean it was God inspired. This is why we must be
ever cautious with what we deem revelation, whether in dream form or vision,
and take the time to confirm that it was from God and not the product of our
own machinations or, worse still, the enemy’s attempt at deception.
The easiest way to know if something did not originate from
God is if what was received contravenes or contradicts Scripture. You don’t
even have to ask for confirmation or pray for a sign as to whether the dream or
vision was from God; you know that it wasn’t because God will neither refute
dispute nor undermine His Word.
Far too many, it seems, are so excited about the prospect of being labeled a seer or a prophet that they don’t take the time to apply this all-important litmus test. When they are inevitably called on the carpet for speaking something contrary to the Word, chances are they’ll double down, reject the correction, and imply that their revelation is above Scripture. In such cases, your best course of action isn’t to back away slowly but to run at full speed, as fast and as far as your legs will take you.
With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea, Jr.
Posted on 28 January 2025 | 12:11 pm
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