We have all had someone close to us have to go through suffering. Whether it was someone as close as a spouse or a child, or whether it was only a friend or even an acquaintance. We’ve all been around people who are suffering. And I don’t know about you, but those times can be some of the most helpless times of your life. What do you do? What do you say? How should you react? In those verses we just read, we see Job’s friends’ greatest moment. They did everything right in three verses. And then for 33 chapters, they completely undid any good they did in those three verses. We like to give Job’s friends a hard time. But I would say that there is not one of us in this room who has not made some of the same mistakes they did. The fact is that suffering is hard. It’s hard to understand. It’s hard to endure. But I think sometimes more than that, it’s hard to watch. It’s hard to watch, because we want to do something to help. And more than that, the person who is suffering wants us to do something to help. But the problem is, most of the time, we can’t. And that’s tremendously frustrating. Did you know that’s what drives many people to pursue their career? When you begin to look into the backgrounds of many nurses... you’ll find that they went into nursing because of the impact of having to watch someone close to them physically suffer. The same thing happens with people who go into psychology. Many people go into psychology because of the impact of having to see someone close to them go through mental suffering. The same thing even happens with people who go into the ministry. Many people go into the ministry after seeing people struggle with their faith to the point of risking eternal suffering. One of the most helpless feelings you will ever face is when someone around you is suffering. I remember when Miranda was pregnant with Kyla. We went through all of the childbirth Lamaze classes. Do you know what the amazing thing about those classes is? They actually had me convinced that I was going to have some part in the delivery. And I was ready. I had all the steps down. I knew how to coach her with her breathing. I was fully prepared. Until we got to the hospital. And when we got to the hospital, I was about as useful as Job’s friends. I might have had a good moment or two like they did. But most of it was worthless. Why was it worthless? Because I kept trying to do something to make it better. And when someone is going through a time of suffering, they don’t need you to do something. Most of the time, they just need you to be something. Don’t get me wrong. Many times people need practical things done for them. I’m sure that Job could have used help later on rebuilding his house or getting back on his feet. But this wasn’t the time for that. This was the time when Job needed comfort and encouragement. And that’s the hardest thing for us to do most of the time. Because, by nature, most of the time we would rather do than be. But that’s just the opposite of what a person who is in the throes of suffering needs. So that’s how we’re going to look at this tonight. First, we’re going to look at some of the “don’t do’s” and some of the “do be’s”. First, the “don’t do’s”.
When someone close to you is suffering, don’t minimize it or overdramatize it. Those are two sides of the same coin. Minimizing suffering is saying something like, “Oh, it’s not really that bad.” “You should have seen what I went through last year.” On the other hand, overdramatizing it is saying something like, “Oh, my cousin had that same thing right before she died.” “They say she was in terrible shape.” We need to be careful not to compare one person’s suffering with another. The fact is, you might have gone through the same thing last year and it wasn’t any big deal to you. But to the person who is suffering, their suffering is real. It is personal. It’s not the same as your cousin’s. Each of us has a different reaction to pain. Each of us reacts differently to difficulty. Each of us reacts differently to emotional hardship. So something that might not bother me at all, might be a really big deal to you. And if it’s a big deal to you, then I need to approach you where you are. Not where I think you should be. Don’t minimize or overdramatize another person’s suffering.
Another mistake we make is that we are quick to try and fix the problem. When someone close to you is suffering, don’t immediately try to fix it. Behind all of their blustering, that’s all that Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar were trying to do. Each of them thought they knew what was wrong and they were encouraging Job to fix it. But Job didn’t need anything to be fixed. All he needed was friendship and comfort. Call me sexist, but I think that this is a guy problem more than it is a lady problem. Ladies are good at just being there and being supportive and caring. Men, we tend to be fixers. That is something that we need to be aware of and guard against. If someone has lost a child or is laid up with a terrible disease, there is nothing we can do to fix it. Now, understanding that can lead us down two paths. First it can lead us to the place where we think, “If I can’t fix it, then I’ll just avoid it altogether.” But that’s not the right answer, is it? The other thing it can lead us to do is to just sit quietly with the person and pray with them and love on them. That is by far the better choice. Don’t be quick to try and fix the problem.
Another bad thing we can sometimes do is to give bad advice. When someone close to you is suffering, don’t give bad advice. That’s what Job’s wife did, isn’t it? 2:9 says, “Then said his wife unto him, Dost thou still retain thine integrity? Curse God, and die.” That was bad advice, wasn’t it? How in the world would that have made anything any better? Would that have brought their wealth back? Would that have made Job’s disease go away? Would that have brought their children back to life? Of course it wouldn’t have. But how often is the advice we give just as destructive? “He cheated on you. You need to take him for everything he’s worth.” “She doesn’t know how to treat you right.” “You just might need to leave her and take care of your own needs.” The bottom line is, don’t give advice unless you are asked for it. And then, only give advice that is true, factual, helpful and biblical. Don’t give bad advice.
Right along with that is that we like to have all the answers. When someone close to you is suffering, don’t try to have all the answers. People who are suffering aren’t looking for all the answers. Most of the time, they’re just looking for a shoulder to cry on. Sometimes they will ask “why” questions. Job asked a lot of them. But when someone is in the middle of suffering and is asking a lot of “why” questions… it’s not the time to launch into a theological diatribe about the nature of evil in the world. It’s not the time to try to justify God’s role in suffering. That’s what these times like tonight are for. You’ve heard me say many times that the time to work on your boat is not in the middle of the storm. The time to work on your boat is before the storm comes. The time to seek the answers to difficult questions is before suffering comes. The time to sure up your theology is before your faith is tested. Because in the middle of the storm, all you can do is bail water. It’s not the time to remind them of all the repairs they should have been doing on their boat while the sun was shining. Answer direct questions with the love and security and sufficiency of God. Don’t try to be the answer man.
And that brings us to the last “don’t do”. And it’s kind of a catch all. When someone close to you is suffering, don’t make it worse. One thing that you notice as you go through the book of Job. Job started off very well. He didn’t understand it. He asked God why he was having to go through it. But he never questioned God’s sovereignty. He never questioned God’s integrity. He had some amazing passages of faith in the beginning. In 1:21 he said, “Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” In 2:10, he tenderly spoke to his grieving wife, “Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. What? Shall we receive good at the hand of God and shall we not receive evil?” In 9:32-35 Job said, “For he is not a man, as I am, that I should answer him, and we should come together in judgment. Neither is there any daysman betwixt us, that might lay his hand upon us both. Let him take his rod away from me, and let not his fear terrify me: Then would I speak, and not fear him; but it is not so with me.” And my favorite passage of all, in 19:25-27: “For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me.” Those were tremendous words of worship from Job. But his friends kept hammering and hammering and hammering him. And as they did, you begin to notice that Job began to move from questioning God to accusing Him. He moved from seeing himself as blameless to seeing himself as inherently righteous. His defense became more and more prideful and bold and accusatory toward God. And the only thing that could have caused that was the ramblings of his friends. Instead of helping their friend, they obviously made things much worse for him. Whatever you do, when someone close to you is suffering, don’t make it worse for them.
So, once again, here are the “don’t do’s”. Don’t minimize or overdramatize suffering in others. Don’t immediately try to fix suffering in others. Don’t give bad advice to one who is suffering. Don’t try to have all the answers. And above all, don’t make things worse. Those are the “don’t do’s”. So what about the “do be’s”? After all, we’ve got to do something. Galatians 6:2 says, “Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” So when someone close to us is suffering, we can’t just ignore it and hope it goes away. We have to do something to share their load. But the interesting thing is, when someone is suffering, most of the time they don’t need us to do. Most of the time, they just need us to be.
The first thing they need us to be, is just to be there. As I said, the passage that we read from Job 2 is the finest hour of his friends. Remember what was going on here. Where was Job? 2:8 says that he had sat down among the ashes. Do you know what that means? In the ancient near east, where was the only place you would find a pile of smoldering ashes like that? In the garbage dump. The events of Job probably happened during the time of Abraham, so Jerusalem wasn’t on the scene yet. But Jerusalem carried on that same practice of having a smoldering ash heap outside of town where all the city’s garbage was burned. Jerusalem used a valley outside of town for that purpose. In English, it was called the Valley of Hinnom. In New Testament Greek, it was simply called Gehenna. On several occasions, Jesus used the name Gehenna as a description of what Hell is like. So Job wasn’t just sitting on a clean pile of cinders. He was sitting in a place that for all intents and purposes was like Hell on earth. So why was he out there? Was it because he was depressed and chose to go there for a pity party? No—do you remember what he was doing when he first got there? He was scraping the open sores that covered his body from head to foot. Later on when God gave Moses the Law, we see what the name for that disease was. It was leprosy. And after the Law, what did they do with lepers? They sent them away—outside of town. And many of them lived in the garbage dump. And even before the law was given, that’s what Job was doing. Now that you have all of that in your mind, I want you to look back to 2:11-13.
JOB 2:11-13
As many things as Job’s friends got wrong—they got this right. They went to Job where he was. At great personal cost to themselves, they were there. They sat in Gehenna with Job. They sat in close proximity with an unclean man. Even though the law had not been given yet, I’m sure that would have made them unwelcome back in town. At least until people saw that they didn’t catch what Job had. But no matter what it cost them, they were there. When someone close to you is suffering, just be there.
And as you’re there, the next thing you need to be is just be quiet. 2:13 says, “And none spake a word unto him, for they saw that his grief was very great.” There is an old German proverb that says, “Speech is silver, silence is golden; speech is human, silence is divine.” As a general rule, most of us hate silence. So because we hate silence, we fill it all up with useless ramblings. Maybe that’s where Job’s friends got off track. Job started talking in chapter 3 and maybe they took that as an indication that they needed to do the same. Seven days and seven nights, they sat there in silence. That silence was indeed golden. And when you’ve been with someone who is suffering, that same silence can be golden. Don’t mess it up by being the first one to speak. Be there, be quiet, and be real.
When someone close to you is suffering, just be real. I don’t think that anybody in here has been trained as a professional counselor. Guess what—you don’t need to be. All you have to be is who you are. Don’t enter into the presence of a suffering friend with a fake face on. If you don’t understand it, don’t fake like you do. If you are an emotional person, don’t fake like you’re not. And by the same token, if you are not an emotional person, don’t fake like you are. Be real. Be genuine. Show genuine understanding. Show genuine caring. When someone close to you is suffering, just be real. And at the same time that you’re being real, you need to be sensitive.
When someone close to you is suffering, just be sensitive. One of the coldest moments in the book of Job is when Bildad speaks. I can tolerate Eliphaz and Zophar. I can’t really figure Elihu out. But I have to tell you—I really don’t like Bildad. Bildad makes me angry because he is the most insensitive one of the whole bunch. Listen to what he tells Job in 8:3-4, “Doth God pervert judgment? or doth the Almighty pervert justice? If thy children have sinned against him, and he have cast them away for their transgression.” Yes—you heard that right. Bildad told Job, “God killed your 10 children because they were sinful.” Can you imagine? Job loved his children. He prayed for them. Chapter 1 tells us that he offered sacrifices for them every day. He loved them so much that he served as their mediator. He was their priest before God. And Bildad throws this at him?!? Technically, theologically, Bildad was right. He was right because all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. It is only by God’s grace and mercy that He doesn’t immediately destroy all of us for our sin. But when a person is suffering is not the time to lay out the intricacies of the doctrine of the total depravity of man. Be sensitive. When someone close to you is suffering, just be sensitive.
Now, there are many other things we need to be. When someone close to you is suffering, be encouraging, be helpful, be responsive. But before we finish, I want to point out the most important thing that you need to be. When someone close to you is suffering, you need to be saved. Why do you need to be saved? Because the greatest thing that anyone who is suffering needs is grace. And the only way that you can truly give grace to someone else is if you’ve experienced grace for yourself. If you have been saved, you have identified yourself with the one who suffered and bled and died for you. Galatians 2:20 says, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” Tonight I have given us a whole list of “don’t do’s” and “do be’s”. My prayer is that those will help you as you minister to those around you who are suffering. But more than that, my prayer is that you are saved. That you have experienced the grace of the one who has suffered for you. And as you have experienced that, my prayer is that His grace will flow through you to those around you who are suffering. And through it all, that Christ will be magnified.
