“Worthless physicians are you all. Oh that you would keep silent, and it would be your wisdom!” Job 13:4–5
Last June, the man God brought into my life as a big brother, pastor, and friend sent me a note that the doctors believed his wife had cancer. I did not get the message until early the next morning. As I walked downstairs to avoid waking up my wife and children, I was sobbing thinking about what was ahead for the people I love so much. In tears, I made it to the quietest corner of our house, got on my knees and sobbed and prayed for nearly an hour.
The next several months were the most emotional, longest stretch of time I can recall. The bad news just seemed to keep coming and the emotional toll it was taking on my friends was intense. My heart was utterly broken for them in ways I had never experienced before. There were so many moments I had no idea what to say as we cried together—but I knew whatever I said had as much opportunity to do harm as good.
When we watch someone we love go through a time of intense anguish, we have this powerful urge to do something, to try and fix things, to say magic words that will make everything better. But the last thing we want to do is be like the infamous friends of Job who brought nothing but more pain with their “wisdom.” In the last year, I have found many passages of Scripture and wisdom from dozens of different writers and pastors that have been tremendously helpful.
1. Comfort from the Lord
Ultimately there is no comfort or peace I can provide to another human being that will last—only God can provide lasting comfort. On so many occasions, I was unintentionally making myself the hero of the story who could swoop in at just the right moment with just the right words. It was an enormous burden to place on myself; it was also foolish to think I had that kind of power, and ultimately incredibly disrespectful to God. I was unintentionally making the story about me when the real hero is Jesus Christ. If you are carrying the burden of being the one who will lift someone you love out of their greatest sorrow—you are trying to be God. The most important thing you can do is point the people you love to the only person who can actually help, and his name is Jesus.
2. Knowing why does not erase the pain
We can be so quick to point someone in pain to Romans 8:28, or tell the friend who just lost a family member that actually it’s good news because now that person is with God. Knowing and believing these truths does not erase the pain. When we drop those verses on top of someone in their hardest moments of life what they feel is a burden that perhaps their pain is sinful. Maybe their pain means they don’t fully trust God. When Jesus sees Lazarus’ friends and family weeping and grieving, he does not rebuke them or tell them they should not be experiencing pain because Lazarus is in heaven—he wept with them. Speculating about God’s purposes in the midst of a trial does not change the fact that the trial is painful. It can be helpful to ask how our friends are doing with the Lord in the midst of their pain, but we have to give them room to trust God and still hurt.
3. Learn which words are for the wind
In Job 6:26, Job rebukes his friends for jumping on the words of a despairing man. People in the midst of great pain will at times say things that come from a temporary state of despair and are not diagnostic of where their heart actually is with the Lord. Job refers to these as words of the wind because sometimes the right thing to do is just let them drift away. Pray earnestly for discernment if/when to rebuke a person who is in emotional despair—it is rarely fruitful. If you see a repeated pattern of sinful response and gospel distortions, finding a time that is out of the heat of the moment could be the most loving thing to do for them. But expect that in the midst of intense suffering, you will hear some words for the wind and what they need from you is a hug and silent prayer for them.
Support in silent presence
Throughout the last year, there were have been many moments when I had prayed about exactly the right words to say, exactly the right time to drop in, exactly the right tone to take. I want to be a good friend to people in need so I asked my brother what was the most helpful thing I had done for him. Turns out it didn’t involve a single word I said or wrote. The first thing he said was knowing he had friends in the hospital waiting room while he was with his wife was comforting. He talked about time we had just sat still before the Lord. It was times of presence, but times of silent presence. The friends of Job were at their best in terms of comforting him in Chapter 2: “And they sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great.”
