Comfort Without Words

The quote below is an excerpt from a article by Trillia Newbell at the Gospel Coalition entitled "Mourning Without Words." The specific context of the piece is comforting someone mourning the death of a loved one. However, the advice about keeping silent and wordless comfort, and the lesson form the Book of Job, applies to  other contexts of emotional trauma. When a loved one is suffering from loss, betrayal, abuse, PTSD, or other forms of severe emotional trauma, sometimes the best way to help is to be silent and just hold them and weep with them.

...There’s a temptation to treat our mourning friends like leaky faucets that need to be fixed. And the expert we call on is ourselves. We try recalling all the memorized Scriptures in our heads, or we run to the concordance and look up search terms: “mourning,” “sorrow,” “pain,” “Job.” Then we spill this wisdom onto our friend, hoping to fix the leak. The effort is well meaning, and there's certainly a time and place for it. But too often we search for the perfect knowledge that will bring comfort and joy when all we really need to say is nothing at all.

When your friend is weeping it’s hard to say, "I don't know, I don't understand." We want to know. We want to bring comfort, but in our attempt to "fix it" we can forget that there's a real person in deep sorrow. Your friend, coworker, or relative is not a faucet to be fixed—they are flesh and blood to be loved. Those moments when you're anxiously trying to find the perfect words are often the best moments to humbly embrace your weakness and lack of knowledge.

To be clear, waiting doesn’t mean never sharing perceived wisdom. Waiting might actually involve acknowledging you do understand. You understand your friend's sorrow enough to be willing to bridle your tongue, to speak carefully and thoughtfully, to pray and wait.

Silence Is a Virtue

In a world where our minds are constantly invaded by noise, it’s no wonder the discipline of silence can feel so difficult. Job’s friends should have kept silent and simply wept with him instead of rattling off unhelpful advice. Have you ever spent any time in the book of Job and cheered on Job’s friends? I know I have. I’ve struggled to understand why their advice is wrong. At face value most of it sounds pretty wise. But they weren't comforting Job; they were accusing him. In Job 16he lays out exactly why these brothers were not helpful, calling them “miserable comforters” (Job 16:2). One even asked a rhetorical question in an attempt to discount Job’s wisdom (Job 15:2).

But did Job’s friends set out to be miserable comforters? Absolutely not. Each had a genuine desire “to show him sympathy and comfort him” (Job 2:11). So what went wrong?

They spoke.

They spoke without waiting and without thinking. And we often do the same. The next time a friend needs comfort and you have no idea what to say, perhaps you shouldn't say anything. It may be an opportunity to cry together. Maybe you could, with a compassion-filled heart, pray together. But wait on the advice and weigh your words.

Our Lord is the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort. He comforts us so we may comfort others (2 Cor. 1:3–5). We must trust him, for he will bring comfort to our hurting friend.

Summation of the Glorious Ruin

I hope you've benefited from the quotes I've posted over the past few weeks from Tullian Tchvidjian's new book Glorious Ruin: How Suffering Sets You Free. You can search this blog for the tag/label "Glorious Ruin" to find all the quotes.

As of now I'd list this book as one of the top 5 I've read in the past few years. I suspect I'll be re-reading it many times in order to absorb everything he says. I do not mean that it is a hard read - it's not. I mean that the content is such that it must be digested over time and used to evaluate my personal life experiences. I suspect you would find the same.

Here is the key thought from my first read through of the book.

Most books about suffering focus on the "Why" question (why must I suffer?) and/or the "How" question (how can I grow from or benefit from my suffering?).  Tullian moves past both of those to the more important "Who" question. From Martin Luther's "Theology of the Cross" he points out that God is most revealed in suffering, because He is a God who saves us through His own vicarious suffering on the Cross of Christ. We prefer a "Theology of Glory" - where God always and only blesses and prospers us. The Cross, however, reveals that the place of pain is the place were God is most clearly revealed in Scripture and life experience and where He is most truly known. Although the author of the Book of Job tells us why Job suffered. Job was never given that answer. He was never told "Why." His "friends" spent all those chapters moralizing his suffering (If you were good you would not suffer) and minimizing it (Just get over it). Job's only answer, all that he was given,  was a revelation of Who - the one true eternal God whom he met in his suffering. That revelation made him a "glorious ruin." That answer was enough.

"I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear,
but now my eye sees you;
therefore I despise myself,
and repent in dust and ashes.”
                 (Job 42:5-6 ESV)

The gospel enables us to escape from the prison of How and Why, and find freedom in the Who. The only answer is meeting God in Christ -and, to borrow the title to one of Tullian's other books, "Jesus + Nothing = Everything."

My brief thoughts do not do the book justice. Whether you agree with these comments or not, go read the book for yourself. I do not think that you will be disappointed.

Next on my reading and quoting list - The Circle Maker: Praying Circles Around Your Biggest Dreams and Greatest Fears by Mark Batterson.

Satisfied by the Naked Longing

Tullian Tchvidjian (Glorious Ruin, pages 177-178) on understanding the Book of Job:

"Take the book of Job. Some commentators actually become exasperated with Job because it seems to go on and on, endlessly repeating the same arguments without providing any definitive answers. there's just chapter after chapter of Job and his friends covering the same territory over and over again. But the redundancy serves both a theological and a literary purpose. Yes, it does go on, and on, and on, with no definitive answers - which is exactly how most of us experience suffering in real life. that is, you are in good company. Job wasn't given a definitive answer either. God did not come to him at the end of the book and say, You made it Job! Now let me tell you the real reason why you suffered. All we find at the bottom of Job's suffering is a naked longing for God. Which, it turns out, is enough."

That is the best summation of the message of Job I have ever heard or read.

  

Job Lessons

The Book of Job is not exactly the most popular book in the Bible. However, the effort to read and grasp its message brings great dividends. Here's Steve Murrell on 7 lessons from the Book of Job
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1. Bad things happen to seemingly good and innocent people. Four times Job is described by God as "blameless and upright" yet he experienced horrible suffering.

2. The devil is real and he comes to "steal, kill and destroy." Chapter 1 makes it clear that all Job's pain and loss was an act of the devil, not an act of God.

3. People experiencing bad times need good friends. When you have friends who are suffering, try doing what Job's friends did in Job 2:13 "Then 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."

4. Good friends often give bad counsel. Unfortunately, after that week of silence, Job's friends opened their mouths and stuck both feet in, nasty sandals and all.

5. Some things can't be explained and some "why" questions can't be answered. The book of Job never answers the "why" question. But it does paint a good picture of "how" - how to find God in our pain and how to respond to calamity in a way that honors God.

6. We can find God in our pain and loss, if we do what Job did when he realized the extent of his loss - "then he fell to the ground in worship..." (Job 1:20) Do we only worship God in the good times?

7. In the end, the blessing of God caught up with and overtook Job. Most people don't press through and read the whole book of Job. But if you endure til the end, you will find that "the Lord blessed the latter part of Job's life more than the former." (Job 42:12) And if we endure past our pain, we will find God in the end.

When to Shut Up

I like this!

we wrangle about the end of the world
and its beginning too
but when YHWH comes in the whirlwind
shut up, we haven’t a clue

From "Chaplain Mike" at Internet Monk

Not only do I like it, but I also think it's a pretty good summation of the message of the Book of Job.

Job in a Tweet

I'm currently reading the Book of Job in my daily Bible reading plan, so I found this one sentence summary of the book humorous (if somewhat inadequate!)

From:  The book of Job summarized in a Tweet - 22 Words: