Responding to the pain of others

 

 

READ Job 17-20

A few people I know tend to glean their analysis of many situations from anecdotal incidents in their personal experience. For instance, when told about a person who broke their leg in a car accident, they relate to their nephew who broke his leg in a car accident caused by speeding, then assumes the other broken leg was the result of bad driving also. This assumption continues even when told that the victim had been hit by another car. In other words, the one who assumes also assumes that he cannot be wrong and goes on talking about the folly of speeding or whatever he thinks is the issue.

This is what Job’s ‘friends’ did to him. Bildad heard Job’s anguish and compared it to the anguish of the wicked, assuming both were caused by the same thing.

Job explained that his suffering was not just his losses, but that everyone had abandoned him. Even God was silent and not giving him the comfort he craved.

“He has made me a byword of the peoples, and I am one before whom men spit. My eye has grown dim from vexation, and all my members are like a shadow. The upright are appalled at this, and the innocent stirs himself up against the godless. Yet the righteous holds to his way, and he who has clean hands grows stronger and stronger. But you, come on again, all of you, and I shall not find a wise man among you.” (Job 17:6–10)

After Job’s anguished words, Bildad speaks of how God punishes the wicked. What he said has truth in it, but his words do not apply to Job’s situation. Instead of listening to his hurt, Bildad assumes that because Job is suffering so much, he must be a wicked person.

Job hangs in there. He says what he is certain of. Even though everyone has deserted him and treats him as an outcast, in his heart his faith stands firm:

“Oh that my words were written! Oh that they were inscribed in a book! Oh that with an iron pen and lead they were engraved in the rock forever! For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me!” (Job 19:23–27)

Job knows his fate is not the same as the unrighteous people his ‘friends’ talk about, yet even this declaration of faith is ignored. Zophar carries on the same way as Bildad, speaking of the shortness of life and how short are the joys of the wicked. Again, he is assuming that whatever goodness Job had enjoyed was short-lived and now he was paying the price of his sin.

“Therefore my thoughts answer me (Zophar speaking), because of my haste within me. I hear censure that insults me, and out of my understanding a spirit answers me. Do you not know this from of old, since man was placed on earth, that the exulting of the wicked is short, and the joy of the godless but for a moment? Though his height mount up to the heavens, and his head reach to the clouds, he will perish forever like his own dung; those who have seen him will say, ‘Where is he?’” (Job 20:2–7)

I can relate, not to Job’s losses nor the depth of his anguish, but I know a little of how he feels at words like those aimed at him. When I share a problem and the listener relates it to a similar problem concerning another person, it seems to me that listener has no concern for me and just wants to show off their ‘wisdom’ about such problems. From this, and from Job, I realize how hurtful this is. Even if the other person is trying to share that they understand what I am going through from their own experiences, this kind of response is seldom helpful.

Once I was at a seminar where the speaker asked what anyone could do when someone told them about the pain they were going through. I spoke up saying something about sharing my own pain so that person would know I understood. The speaker said, “Oh, what an unloving thing to do.” It took me a long time to figure out why she said that, and how true it was. Do not burden a hurting person by directing their attention to the hurts of someone else. It adds to their burden, but it also says their pain isn’t my focus. God never does that. Neither should Job’s ‘friends’ have done that, and I should never do that either.

The best we can do is weep with those who weep.