October 29, 2006
Rev. Terry D. Campbell

Helping Someone Suffering
Job 2:11-13

“When Job’s three friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite, heard about all the troubles that had come upon him, they set out from their homes and met together by agreement to go and sympathize with him and comfort him. ¹²When they saw him from a distance, they could hardly recognize him; they began to weep aloud, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads. ¹³Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was.”

Driving through Texas, a New Yorker collided with a truck carrying a horse. A few months later he tried to collect damages for his injuries. “How can you now claim to have all these injuries?” asked the insurance company's lawyer. “According to the police report, at the time you said you were not hurt.” “Look,” replied the New Yorker. “I was lying on the road in a lot of pain, and I heard someone say the horse had a broken leg. The net thing I know this Texas Ranger pulls out his gun and shoots the horse. Then he turns to me and asks, ‘Are you okay?’”[i]

When people are suffering, how you respond to them can help them or slow their healing.

Silence yourself and listen.

"¹³Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was.”

Pain comes in a wide variety of kinds and sizes. The thing to remember is that each person’s pain is real, devastating, and tragic to them. Whether you think they have a problem or not, whether it would be big pain to you, their pain is real to them! The first thing we need to do is to be with them and listen when they are ready to talk.

Our nerves make us hate silence and want to fill the air with talk. That might help us, but it doesn’t help them. The Bible admonishes us to be listeners before we are talkers or doers. Proverbs 18:13-“He who answers before listening—that is his folly and his shame.”

Without listening we can’t understand what they are going through. We can’t know how they are responding to it or handling it. We can’t begin to empathize or respond in a loving manner that shows we care and are there for THEM.

Understand their pain.

Seek to understand how they are feeling. How are they responding to their situation. You can’t fully help them understanding their pain as YOU would respond to it—but only as you understand from their perspective.

Whether we can change their situation or not, we can at least understand their pain and help them know that they are not alone as they face it. The tendency we have to go in filling the silence with words, examples and advice is not good.

Proverbs 18:2-“A fool finds no pleasure in understanding but delights in airing his own opinions.” That’s why you begin with silence and observation as you begin to understand them and then move to listening and asking question for further enlightenment.

Ask questions. “How are you handling this?” “What are you thinking or are you still in shock?” Subtly mirror back what you think you are hearing them say to make sure you are understanding them. If you seek to understand them they will better know you are there FOR them.

Focus acts of compassion on them.

“There’s a cartoon of two turtles. One says, ‘Sometimes I’d like to ask why God allows poverty, famine, and injustice when he could do something about it.’ The other turtle says, ‘I’m afraid God might ask me the same question.’”[ii]

Acts of compassion are not what do YOU want to do; not what will make YOU feel good; BUT what will be helpful to THEM! That’s why quiet listening and understanding come first. Then you can offer to do things for them:

• Fix a special dish of food and take it to them—or take them out and just hang-out.
• Keep the kids and let them do something they want to do but can’t if they have to watch the children.
• Visit them from time to time or go out with them and do fun-things.

Forget easy answers or solutions.

Job’s friends came to him with canned answers from the popular theology of the day. If bad is happening to you, you must have sinned. That’s not true and it wasn’t the case here. But with their easy solutions, they were more enemies than friends.

Eliphaz: You’ve sinned.

Job 4:7-“’Consider now: Who, being innocent, has ever perished? Where were the upright ever destroyed? ’”

Job 8:1-7-Bildad: You’ve lied about sinning.

²"How long will you say such things? Your words are a blustering wind. ³Does God pervert justice? Does the Almighty pervert what is right? ⁴When your children sinned against him, he gave them over to the penalty of their sin. ⁵But if you will look to God and plead with the Almighty, ⁶if you are pure and upright, even now he will rouse himself on your behalf and restore you to your rightful place. ⁷Your beginnings will seem humble, so prosperous will your future be.

Job 11:1-6-Zophar: You’re a hypocrite and deserve worse.

²”’Are all these words to go unanswered? Is this talker to be vindicated? ³Will your idle talk reduce men to silence? Will no one rebuke you when you mock? ⁴You say to God, 'My beliefs are flawless and I am pure in your sight.’ ⁵Oh, how I wish that God would speak, that he would open his lips against you ⁶and disclose to you the secrets of wisdom, for true wisdom has two sides. Know this: God has even forgotten some of your sin.

Evaluate the experience.

How we respond to suffering is in our free will. “We have a choice about how we approach our suffering—in faith or out of it. There’s a story of two rabbis in a concentration camp. One had lost his faith and had said there is no God; the other had kept his faith and said ‘God will rescue us.’ Both were in a line to enter the death showers. The believer looked around and said, ‘God will rescue us,’ but when it became his turn to go in, his last words were: ‘There is no God.’

‘Then the unbelieving rabbi, who had constantly heckled the other rabbi’s faith, entered the gas chamber with the prayer ‘Shema Israel’ on his lips. He became a believer. Free will, both ways. Why do some people in starving Africa or concentration camps become believers and some lose their faith? That ’s a mystery of human unpredictability.”[iii]

Suffering seems as likely to reinforce faith as to sow doubt. Phillip Yancey writes after wide-ranging research on the subject of suffering, “Indeed it is the world’s greatest sufferers who have produced the most shining examples of unconquerable faith.”[iv] We ought to be listeners and faith encouragers.

One thing we know, our faith can be in the God who understands and shares our suffering. God has demonstrated how the very worst thing that has ever happened in the history of the world ended up resulting in the very best thing that has ever happened in the history of the world.[v] Our hope is in the good God.

Relate them to the presence of Jesus Christ.

There was a picture of an old burned-out mountain shack. All that remained was the chimney...the charred debris of what had been that family’s sole possession. In front of this destroyed home stood an old grandfather-looking man dressed only in his underclothes with a small boy clutching a pair of patched overalls. It was evident that the child was crying. Beneath the picture were the words which the artist felt the old man was speaking to the boy. They were simple words, yet profound life, “Hush child, God ain ’t dead!”

Instead of despair of life, it has come to be a reminder of hope! I need mental pictures to remind me that all is not lost as long as God is alive and in control of His world.[vi] God is with them, hurting and caring for them in their pain.

John R.W. Stott said, “’I could never myself believe in God if it were not for the cross . . . In the real world of pain how could one worship a God who was immune to it? . . . The cross of Christ . . . is God’s only self-justification in such a world as ours.’”[vii] Pray with them. Open them to God’s compassion, grace, hope. Encourage them to see that Jesus is our anchor in the storm.

What will you do now?

Remember the words of this SUFFER acrostic as you relate to sufferers. May it empower you to be more caring and helpful with someone suffering. Amen.

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