Sometimes, the best thing we can do in a given situation is to keep silent. I realize this goes against our instincts, perhaps even against our nature because everyone has to have an opinion about everything, and if you don’t have an opinion, they’ll have an opinion as to why you don’t have an opinion.
Unsolicited advice is everywhere, and the more you try to
tune it out, the louder it gets because those offering it think they can
whittle you down to the point that you go along with whatever they’re saying
just to make them stop talking.
We have to make the requisite allowances for the fact that
Job’s wife was likewise feeling, heretofore, unfelt depths of pain. She’d just
lost all ten of her children as well; the life she’d known up until days ago
was smashed to smithereens, and her husband, the father of her children and the
protector, provider, and overseer of a vast, well-oiled homestead which spanned
hundreds of souls and thousands of livestock lay in ruin, covered in painful
boils, scratching at himself while sitting atop an ash heap.
Respect is one of the most important virtues one spouse must
possess for the other, and it must be a reciprocal act. I can hear the eyebrows
arching, see the wagging fingers, and the need to give in to the desire to
write me a quick note, insisting that love is the most important virtue. In my
defense, I said respect is one of the most important virtues, but beyond that,
if there’s no love in a marriage, then any respect one might emote is feigned
and situational and is tethered to a hidden motive of some kind.
Come June of next year, I will have been married for a
quarter of a century. Said marriage produced two wonderful daughters, as well
as the requisite moments of joy, pain, laughter, tears, jubilation, and
anxiety. Through it all, we were there for each other, sharing in the joy and
the sorrow, with mutual respect being the cornerstone upon which trust, value,
and self-sacrifice were built.
The easiest way to navigate life’s storms and keep from crashing
against the rocky outcroppings is to put God first in every area of your life, and
that includes marriage. It is something we discussed at length before getting
married and something we committed to from the outset. The question was never
about what was best for our situation or what could help us get ahead as a new
family, but what the will of God was for us and where He needed us to be. It’s
something both parties have to agree with and commit to. Otherwise, there will
be tension, there will be arguments, and it’s hard to make progress when one
individual is pulling to the left and the other is pulling to the right.
Whether Job’s wife lost respect for him or not, I cannot say
with certainty, but her reaction to seeing him in his current condition hints
at the probability that she did. She saw a once strong, assertive, decisive
man, seemingly in control of everything around him, reduced to little more than
a homeless beggar covered in boils. At the time, for fear of contracting
whatever the malady was, the individual in question would be removed to the
outskirts of the city and left alone to live out the rest of their days in
solitude. Whether it was leprosy or boils, the sufferer would be shunned by
society and forced into isolation for fear of the disease spreading.
Job’s wife being used by the enemy and her continuing to have
love for him in her heart are not mutually exclusive. Two ideas can be true at
the same time, so it’s not so much that she stopped loving him or thinking of
him as her husband, but in the moment, she allowed herself to be used by Satan
for the nefarious purpose of insisting that he curse God and die.
Satan wanted to prove God wrong. He wanted to be able to
return anew when the sons of God were gathered together, gloat at having broken
Job, and pressured him to the point of sinning against God in some way. We
clearly see the lengths to which he was willing to go to accomplish his plan,
so the idea that he whispered in Job’s wife’s ear to encourage him to cease
holding onto his integrity and to curse God isn’t just a possibility but highly
probable.
When you understand the lengths to which the enemy of your
soul will go to plant bitterness or rebellion in your heart, it will make you
cling to Jesus all the more. All he needs is a moment of weakness, a chink in
your armor, something he can leverage and use to get you to take your eyes off
Christ and the cross and think you can beat back the enemy all on your own.
Most of us are predisposed to speak first and think later. It’s
not a noble virtue, and it’s something I’ve dealt with for the better part of
my life, especially since the girls were old enough to walk, climb, and hang
onto things they shouldn’t be hanging onto. Even after repeatedly telling them
not to climb the tree in the backyard or try to do somersaults off the kitchen
counter, they’d still do it and end up with a bruise or a knot on their forehead.
I had to fight the urge to say, “I told you so!” because it was neither the
time nor the place for it. It’s what I wanted to say; it was on the tip of my
tongue, but I could see the tears in their eyes and the pain they were in, and
I knew that what they needed at that moment was comfort, a hug, and someone to
ask if they were okay.
We can be brutal and coldhearted when it comes to another’s
suffering, kicking them while they’re down or making it about ourselves, insisting
that we warned them, told them, pleaded with them not to do what they did that
got them in the situation they were in, but sometimes it’s best to bite our
tongue, say nothing, and weep with those who weep.
Don’t allow yourself to be used of the enemy to shred another’s last ounce of hope by insisting that they abandon it altogether and give in to the despair. Be wise in your counsel, and know when, rather than counsel, the person just needs a shoulder to cry on.
With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea, Jr.
Posted on 18 November 2024 | 12:36 pm
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