The angels surround the Almighty when the Enemy enters stage left. “From where have you come?” God asks the Opposer. Satan sneers, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.” God asks him to consider his servant Job, “a blameless and upright man.” Satan sneers, “Does Job fear God for no reason?” Like Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry, the Adversary saunters across the scene and challenges his foe“Do you feel lucky, punk? Well, do you?”
Unlike Dirty Harry, Satan does not work alone. He manipulates, coerces, and cajoles whoever he can to join him in his cause to multiply the ranks of those who curse God.
Job’s own wife is the first to turn on Job, “Curse God and die!” she urges her (apparently) forsaken husband. And Job’s friends will soon join in, taking her place in multiplying Job’s pain. “Miserable comforters are you all[!]” Job finally sputters, provoked by their arrogance and lack of empathy.
You’ve been there, haven’t you? You were passed over for a promotion at work and it stung. “God has something better,” your friend assured you, before you were able to grieve. Miserable comforter. Your mom got COVID and is on a ventilator in the hospital. “Don’t worry,” your cousin texts you, “99% of those with COVID recover.” Miserable comforter. Your friend dies from a battle with cancer. “He’s in a better place,” a friend in your small group offers. Miserable comforter.
How can we avoid the pitfall of being one of these well-meaning miserable comforters?
Don’t give trite answers. Offer your presence.
So often we feel trapped when we walk with others in loss. What do we say? What encouragement can we offer? The truth is that there is no script I can show you of perfect things to say, but what so much of what we are taught culturally rings hollow and cuts grief off at the pass. “He’s in a better place” is the textbook example of a statement that cuts the legs out from the one who is grieving. It puts them in the place where they have to deny their grief in order to affirm your statement. Instead, step into their grief. Job’s friends started out right as they sat in silence with their friend. In Isaiah 66:13a we see that God’s example of comfort, “As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you.” A good mom holds her child, rocking her gently, letting her cry. This is how God cares for us and how he invites us to care for others.
Don’t try to draw lessons for them. Instead, offer mercy and pray for them.
Job’s friends foolishly tried to explain the why of Job’s suffering. Perhaps Job hadn’t been generous enough. Perhaps Job hadn’t parented in a way that pleased God. What folly for us to try to discern God’s mind. We don’t know why anyone suffers. Instead of their answers, Job wanted his friends’ mercy. “Have mercy on me, have mercy on me, O you my friends, for the hand of God has touched me!” Job cried out (Job 19:21). Draw near to those in grief mercifully. Don’t try to draw out a simple life lesson for them.
Pray urgently and frequently for those who are suffering. Instead of offering to pray for the one who is suffering and then doing so on your own, do so in their presence. Draw near to God alongside them.
Don’t expect a timeline. Walk with them in their time.
Job’s friends were worn out by how long it took Job to get over his loss. At one point Bildad, exasperated, asks, “How long will you hunt for words?” (Job 18:2a). There is no timeline we can chart someone’s grief on. I know dear widows who, decades after the loss of their husbands, still tear up when they talk about the love of their life. I know moms who have lost their children who hurt every day from the gap their child’s death left in their lives. There is nothing wrong with those whose grief lasts until they meet Jesus face to face.
A friend’s grief can be taxing. You can be tempted to want them to get over their loss and get back to normal because you miss a former season of your relationship. But that might never come, or at least not in the same way. Love them enough to walk at their pace. As Paul says, “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep” (Roms 12:15).
Don’t expect consistency. Invite them into the real.
Walking with others in their suffering can feel like you’ve been invited unawares on a rollercoaster ride. “Wait a minute,” you might think, “I thought you were doing better!” A good friend is a place that invites the suffer to be honest about the rollercoaster. Those suffering will often feel like they have to “put on a good face” for many in their lives. Be someone who allows those in grief to be themselves.
Job dropped into places of deep despair. “Let the day perish on which I was born, and the night that said, ‘A man is conceived.’ Let that day be darkness! May God above not seek it, nor light shine upon it.” Can you imagine hearing those words from a godly friend? It is shocking. Terrifying, even. But it is also a gift to be invited into that transparent space. Don’t quick pull out the Band-Aids. Sometimes it’s good for a wound to bleed.
Don’t water down your theology. When asked, give hard and true answers.
Those suffering ask some of the hardest questions. Within the text of the book of Job, Job himself is never allowed to peek behind the curtain to understand what happened in the heavenly realms that led to his suffering. Many of us will never fully understand why a sovereign God will allow us to experience the loss and pain we experience in this life.
We are tempted to pull our punches theologically. We are tempted to limit God’s sovereignty. “God didn’t want this to happen,” we might say. Or perhaps we are tempted to declare that the suffering has nothing to do with the sufferer’s sin. We duck James’ advice for those suffering to call the elders and confess their sin (James 4:13-16). Or that God disciplines his children and suffering is sometimes part of that discipline (Heb 12:3-8). Suffering might be part corrective or proactive discipline.
We cannot domesticate God. We cannot speak declaratively on his behalf. All we can do is hold the hands of those who are suffering and bring them to the presence of our holy, loving, and sovereign God.
“Though he slay me, I will hope in him,” Job cried out. And then he added, “yet I will argue my ways to his face” (Job 13:15). This is a jaw-dropping faith. We are invited alongside saints like this to be present, to pray, to persist, and to speak transparently and truthfully. In this, our comfort will mirror the Great Comforter and Co-Sufferer, the Spirit and the Son.
Read the companion piece here: