Reflection: We are often too quick to say, “we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28). And it is not surprising that when we flippantly say this, the other person’s general response is that they feel crushed and worse than they did before we offered this nugget of advice. I wonder if someone has said this to you when you were hurting?
The advice is unhelpful because what we really need when we are metaphorically sitting in ashes and scraping our sores with pieces of broken pottery (Job 2:8) is someone to be there with us. In psychological terms we call this process ‘validating our pain’. We want someone to defer their judgement, advice and problem solving and instead, patiently and intentionally choose to sit with us in our pain and feel it too. This is one of the main lessons in the book of Job. We are to stop and just be with a person in their suffering, and not be like his wife who famously said, ‘Curse God and die!’ (Job 2:9) or his friends Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar, who after sitting with him in his pain for a while, concluded he must have done something wrong to bring this much suffering upon himself.
We tend to say platitudes like Romans 8:28 as a universal band aid. I wonder if it has more to do with making us feel like we have contributed some advice so we can move on and stop thinking about and feeling the pain of the other person. But I don’t think this is how Paul intended that we use this verse. A better way to show our love and concern for someone is to share both their sadness and suffering, happiness and rejoicing. We are reminded that if we love our fellow Christians, we will not do something that will cause them to stumble (1 John 2:10). Rather, we are to ‘Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn’ (Rom 12:15).
Prayer: Father God, thank you that you comfort me. Today I want to rejoice with other people who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn. To love completely as you do with patience and kindness. Amen.