The Book of Job is puzzling to me on so many levels. Every time I read it, I learn new things about suffering and God’s part in it. One thing that puzzles me exceedingly is the reaction of Job’s friends to his suffering. When Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar heard of Job’s suffering they went to him. We are told in Job 2:13 that they “sat down with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights, and none spoke a word unto him: for they saw that his grief was very great.” If these friends had left it at that, they would have been of some help to Job. The problem was that they began to open their mouths and give their assumptions about Job’s suffering. One of the first lessons I learned in pastoral care was that we never take our assumptions into a counseling session. Why? Because our assumptions might be true to us but not necessarily true in the life of the other person.
This was certainly the case with Job’s friends. It’s almost as if they were not at all concerned about Job at that point, but were intent on proving their own points to him. Bildad was really callous when he said: “When your children sinned against Him, He gave them over to the penalty of their sins.” You remember that all of Job’s offspring were killed when Satan unleashed his ugly power on Job and his family. How could that help Job? These three friends can remind us that when we want to minister to our friends who are suffering, they do not need our assumptions. We need to keep our mouths shut unless we have something constructive to say. Our assumption might be that God is punishing them, but that is not necessarily true, and we have no way of determining that this is true. The best thing to say to a suffering friend is something like: “I am sorry for your problem. I have come to pray with you that God will be with you through what you are presently suffering” It could very well be that the friend is being disciplined by God, but we have no way of knowing that this is true. I am grateful that in my times of suffering my friends have not given me their assumptions about why I was suffering. They have mainly prayed for me, and told me that they would continue to pray for me. I actually had no assumptions about why I was suffering. The only assumption I had was that God was with me in my time of suffering, and that I was under His care. The thing for us to remember, when ministering to suffering friends, is that the best thing to do is to say nothing until God, in His infinite wisdom, gives us something to say. We need to consider the possibility that God does not want us to say anything, and just let our presence in their time of suffering tell them that we care. I learned the truth of this several years ago when my father died. When his pastor came into the house, his being there was really all that I needed from him. He was wise enough to carefully measure his words, and was a real comfort to us. These are just some things that we need to remember when we want to be a comfort to our suffering friends. Bro. Joe
1 Comment
|
AuthorDr. Joe Beauchamp is the author of this blog and website. Categories
All
Archives
September 2021
|