When Others are Hurting: Part 2 — Morning Devotions

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Transcript

Yesterday, I opened up the topic, how to help people who are hurting. And really, what I’m looking at is Job, this amazing guy in the Old Testament, who suffered immense grief and loss, and he had 3 friends – they meant well, they came along to help him. They sat with him for 7 days, 7 nights, didn’t say a word.

When Others are Hurting: Part 1 — Morning Devotions

But then they started, and I’m not sure they got it really correct because Job’s friends, although people sort of castigate them, and I suppose I am too, is lacking compassion. We’ve got to remember that these men who were professional leaders in their own society had stopped what they were doing. They travelled, it would seem, a great distance to be with Job, to be with their friend in distress.

And I think if we want to help those who are hurting, we must let them express their pain without feeling threatened, and really they were threatened.

And perhaps mistaking his friend’s caring silence for empathy, Job voiced how he was just desperate. You can read about that for yourself in Job chapter 3, and the intensity of his own anger shocked his friends. They saw his outburst as a threat, I guess, to their faith, and they became very defensive.

So when Job needed the compassion of a loving heart. His friends developed within themselves this need to straighten him out. We’re going to solve your problem.

And so they became very rigid, and they wanted to get sort of silence this heretic, they thought he was a heretic, so they lost their objectivity, they judged him very harshly.

Should we ask others to share deep and painful feelings and then tell them you shouldn’t feel like that?

And I think that all this adds to the element of guilt. So if we were to help our friends or help anyone that’s hurting, we must listen to what they say rather than focus on how they say it.

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I mean think of yourself if you’ve been in real distress. You’re not going to be cool, calm, and collected. Now Job, as you read the book, and I hope you will take time to read it, he himself admitted that his words were harsh. But in Job chapter 6, for example, he says they were words that he meant, so we shouldn’t try to minimise or blame.

This principle is illustrated in numbers again in the old tenant where Moses, he would seem on the verge of a complete mental breakdown from all the pressure that he had as a leader. He issued this tirade against God. He really got stuck into God, but the Lord neither rebuked or condemned him, but offered real help for Moses by providing people, leaders to help him, and food for the people that were murmuring.

So if you want to help those who are hurting, I think we’ve got to be willing to say, look, I don’t know. I don’t know the answer to your dilemma, and those three little words I don’t know are simple enough, and Job’s friends were totally incapable of saying them. They really felt they had to have the answer to everything.

So an authentic helper must be willing to admit their own inadequacy, the fact that they don’t know the answer to the problem. And when we don’t know, we must say we don’t know. It’s far, far better to be supportive, to listen without words, and let that person speak.

So if we want to help people like that, we must recognise that the healing, the genuine healing comes from within and from God. Our most skilled efforts can enhance and help, yes.

And in Job’s case this process developed despite his three friends who were insensitive. In fact their harshness, I guess only made Job more tortured in his own spirit, and he poured out his heart in prayer. He got so angry he wanted help from God.

And when the Lord ultimately restored Job, we read again, for example, in Job 42, he rebuked these friends, but he mercifully accepted their repentance. It’s a very, very interesting story. Have a look for yourself in Job 42. We don’t know quite what happened afterwards to Job’s friends, but they did care, and I hope that they reflected on that situation as we all can.

We all can sort of make mistakes as we care for others.

Let’s Pray

Dear Lord, we do know that often we are selfish, but there are people, Lord, who need us. Make us genuine carers, because I ask it in the wonderful name of Jesus. Amen.

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