The book of Job is a pretty cool book.
Some people say all kinds of woeful things about Job. They might even call him a “woe is me,” kind of guy. But there are 42 chapters to that book and Job goes through some phases of change in those 42 chapters. So, it can be hard to characterize Job by the end of it as a “woe is me,” kind of guy.
The “o” in Job, by the way, tends to be pronounced in American English as a long o, like the name Joe. And Job is the kind of story that can happen to a regular Joe too. In fact, it does, every day. There might be multiple times in your life, or anyone’s life, where everything goes to ruin, or at least feels like it goes to ruin.
And sometimes, at moments like those, we need friends to gather round and give us a hand. Sometimes those friends might even come when we do not call on them to come. Some people just seem to know how to rally around others in times of crisis.
Job had three respected friends who came together to sympathize with him and comfort him. But before those friends said a single word, they just sat down next to him and said nothing. Not for a few minutes, either. They sat down next to him for seven days, saying not a word.
At least that is what the book of Job seems to indicate.
I do not know what your life looks like, but in my calculus of how to spend time, I do not know how many people on this planet would get seven days of total silence from me.
Job’s friends gave him that gift.
After seven days of silence, with these respected men sitting right next to their friend in his suffering, Job spoke up.
Job spoke foolishness.
Utter foolishness.
Or at least he spoke words that his friends would describe as foolishness. They would even describe it as blasphemy. When they saw this foolish behavior, they understandably chided him. They pushed back on him. They refused to stay silent in the face of such nonsense. Mourning together they would do. But silence in the face of lies spoken by Job audibly? That they would not do. That was a step too far. They knew then as well as we know today that silence means compliance. Lovingly and with regard for the truth, they wanted their friend Job to just turn away from such foolish talk about God and His ways.
Those three friends at that point made a decision. They names were Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar. They had to make a decision: Would the names Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar risk going down in history as mistaken and misled mockeries who got it all wrong?
That is a hard decision to face, but they had to.
You see, in the book of Job, the opinion of Job, to a degree, comes with the imprimatur of God, while the views of Job’s friends Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar (and others) appear to come with divine condemnation. They are foils to Job. Had they not spoken, there would be no story. Had they not spoken, there would be no compelling, challenging, and captivating book of Job. Much would we lose had they not spoken. And when they spoke, they made their way into a place of dishonor, one could argue, as the men who acted as the foils to one of the most upright men mentioned in the Bible.
They could not have known such a thing would have happened. They could not know the bestselling book on the planet for generations would feature them as literary tropes, figures to be mocked and ridiculed. They could not have known that when they went over to the trash heap and sat down by their forlorn friend Job who was scraping sores off his arm with a piece of broken pottery, and offered the poor fellow some helpful guidance.
They could not have known that.
But the truth is, every time you open your mouth, every time you speak up for the truth, you risk doing exactly that.
And it should not matter.
The only thing that should matter is “What is true?”
Then you go out and communicate it.
It does not matter what they say. It does not matter who mocks you. It does not matter how long they mock you. It does not matter if people mock you for generations, in fact, even in the bestselling book for generations.
Recognize that is always a risk every time you open your mouth, every time you put your pen to paper, every time you say “Yes!” or “No!” or even “I don’t know,” or “Wait just a minute!” or “I’m not so sure about that!”
If you speak, there may be great risk. And it may go beyond the level of risk you can control. There are more risky situations and less risky situations, but the reality is that speaking truth brings with it risks that perpetuate risk beyond your control.
So, you just need to determine beforehand the answer to this question, in fact now would be the ideal time to answer this if you have not already: Will I be one who speaks truth in the world? Or will I be one who seeks to speak a popular opinion?
You cannot do both. And the two are not dependent of situation. You can never know where speaking the truth will get you. It comes with massive upside and massive downside. You just need to choose to be one who speaks the truth or someone who walks through life with another agenda.
And when I say downside, it is worth nothing that downside is more often a blessing as well. For example, those allergic to the truth will not talk to you anymore. They probably will not even be able to tolerate hearing about you. That is a priceless service that you will not be able to pay someone for. That service might be called the “remove the half-hearted, the double-minded, the hypocrites, the midwits, and the liars from my life who are allergic to hearing the truth” service. You literally can not pay for such a service. And if you could pay, the service would not work anyway. You just need to be a truth teller to have that benefit.
And I do not mean to say that life will be all roses. The downside really does tend to involve a lot of downsides when you determine you will be a truth-teller and not cater to popular opinion.
From the Ides of March 2020 forward, I came across all kinds of horror stories of what took place in people’s lives because they stood firm against lies.
How vital it was at that time to 1.) Separate community in any way possible, and to 2.) Assure unquestioning mass compliance with the most vile and preposterous of lies. More than any death or illness, these were the two defining factors of Covid-19 and the Covid-19 response.
We can not go back to 2020. But we live in a world that wishes to take us back there. We must not let that happen. In each of our lives, we must determine all the more resolutely to build defenses against two fundamental aspects of Covid-19: 1.) The attack on community and 2.) The attack on truth.
If you are reading this, you likely fit my definition of what a poet is. He is the truth teller, venturing out into the distant reaches of society, in search of truth, and bringing it back to his readers and to his culture. This is a far superior definition of poet when compared to any saccharine definition given by a sixth grade teacher that includes mention of rhyme or rhythm. I write about that important role in my next book, available for free for a limited time. It is a call to truth-tellers and would-be truth-tellers. I have a feeling it is likely a call to you. You can find it here.
Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar are not considered some of the great heroes of the Bible, and yet at the same time they are so worthy of that designation of hero. They were willing to make a mistake. They were willing to speak the truth boldly. They were willing to share with a friend, even if their friend was not very willing to hear it. Because of their risks, they have left us with one of the great stories of world literature and one of the great books about the ways of God — the book of Job.
In doing so, they make themselves worthy of emulation.
We must not fear making a mistake.
We must not fear what people will think of us, or what they will say to us, or what they will say about us behind our backs.
We must have a dedication to seeking the truth, knowing the truth, and sharing the truth.
We must be willing to get it wrong. To be unable to do so is to deny our fundamental humanness, our imperfect nature. Perfection is not for us, and if we embrace that, it gives us so much room to just act without fear of what happens if we are not perfect.
Perhaps you even understand the Christian concept of Grace, and that enables you even more to operate without fear of imperfection. It allows you to speak from a place of love for another person, rooted in a developed appreciation for truth. I understand that concept. As I write this, dear reader, your author, a one-time atheist, knows how liberating that Grace has been in my life.
In the last five years, a great gap has been created.
It is a chasm between the amount of truth-tellers society needs and the amount of truth-tellers society is getting.
We are in deficit. No matter how saturated with truth-tellers you may think the world is, I assure you, you are mistaken. More are needed. Many hungry people are not being reached.
The world is perfectly situated for truth-tellers to do exactly that: To go out into the world seeking the truth, knowing the truth, and sharing the truth.
If you are not doing that, I beg of you to take on that responsibility to do so this very day. It does not come without risk. It comes with risk, and disadvantage, and loss. I can almost promise you that.
But it will not be as bad as one can imagine.
And it will come with so much more glory.
Glory requires for you to run toward the battle, not from the battle.
As some of the most historically important battles loomed on the horizon, you did not flee the battlefield, you did not run from the risk and from the challenge, but you embraced it. You longed for it. You wanted more of it. Instead of being a clanging cymbal, instead of being that, instead from a place of love, devoted to truth, you took the risk and spoke openly.
You can do that.
Every single time.
Or you can just sit and wait for the next Ides of March 2020 to come back into your life and into the world as you know it.
You have your choice.
What will you do?
I know what I will be doing.
Join me.
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