“Now the day came when the sons of the true God entered to take their station before Jehovah, and Satan also entered among them.
“Then Jehovah said to Satan: ‘Where have you come from?’ Satan answered Jehovah: ‘From roving about on the earth and from walking about in it.’ And Jehovah said to Satan: ‘Have you taken note of my servant Job? There is no one like him on the earth. He is an upright man of integrity, fearing God and shunning what is bad.’ At that Satan answered Jehovah: ‘Is it for nothing that Job has feared God? Have you not put up a protective hedge around him and his house and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his livestock has spread out in the land. But, for a change, stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your very face.’ Then Jehovah said to Satan: ‘Look! Everything that he has is in your hand. Only do not lay your hand on the man himself!’”
Job 1:6-12
Satan made a wager. Satan told God that Job only fears Him because He blesses him. Satan bet that if God took all that away, Job would curse him to his very face.
The wager was that man would always react deterministically in his own self-interest. What was at stake was the existence and wisdom of free will.
This was Satan’s purest expression of hard determinism: all righteous behavior is fully caused by favorable circumstances. Remove the causes and the behavior disappears.
So the wager was on. God allowed Satan to do the following to job, without his even being aware of the circumstances:
- He destroyed all of Job’s wealth and livestock through raiders and fire from heaven.
- He killed all ten of Job’s 10 children in a single day when a house collapsed on them.
- He afflicted Job with severe, painful sores from the soles of his feet to the top of his head.
Satan’s goal was to prove that Job’s righteousness was purely downstream — a deterministic reaction to favorable circumstances. Remove the blessings, he claimed, and the loyalty would disappear.
So, how did it turn out? What did Job say after all that calamity was brought on him for no reason?
“Until I die, I will not renounce my integrity! I will maintain my righteousness and never let it go;” — Job 27:5,6
Job knew all about the upstream moment. In his daily life, he patterned his brain so that it could withstand any test. Through the myriad of small decisions he made in quiet contemplation, he chose to maintain his integrity. When the test came, his mind was all ready made up. His brain patterns fired, and he stayed faithful.
He did the exact opposite of what determinism predicted he would do, proved Satan a liar, and justified God’s gift of free will.
To be sure, Job could have caved. He could have succumbed and cursed God. He had true free will. Real love and loyalty require the real possibility of refusal.
Job’s story shows that such loyalty is possible.
Today, Satan has shifted his strategy. Instead of removing blessings, he works to prevent Upstream Moments altogether — through constant distraction, algorithms, notifications, and noise. When we surrender our quiet times, we become exactly what Satan claimed Job was: purely reactive.
Guard your Upstream Moments. Don’t let Satan program your brain.
Even in suffering, free will can win. Job’s story shows that upstream character formation can produce loyalty that survives the worst downstream trials.
Personally, I have faced many trials. For the past 25 years I have taken antipsychotics for schizoaffective disorder, bipolar type. The medication has taken a heavy toll, leaving me with severe drug-induced Parkinsonism: constant dyskinesia, akathisia, and shaking. I no longer know what a quiet moment feels like.
Yet I choose to be happy. I trained my mind over many years so that when adversity came, I would remain faithful and joyful. I still choose to trust God.
Guard your Upstream Moments. They are where real loyalty is formed.
See this article for a full discussion of how Job kept his integrity–>