Comfort Those In Suffering

Tullian Tchividjian once said, "Job's friends were great counselors, until they opened their mouth." If you read the book of Job as he starts blasting the day of his birth, his three friends were of no comfort to him. He told them, "I have heard many such things; miserable comforters are you all" (Job 16:2). I wonder how miserable of comforters or counselors we have been to those who were going through suffering.

I was diagnosed with cancer in 2007, I remember my pastor at the time asking me why God gave me cancer. I said I did not know why I was going through this. He proceeded to ask the question again. He offered no words of comfort as I was going through that season of suffering.

It is sad to say that some in the church are horrible when it comes to comfort those going through suffering whether it is the death of a loved one or getting diagnosed with a disease. We have the tendency, like Job's three friends, to say to that person to repent of whatever sin you have committed that has God angry with you. We always want to point the finger at someone or something when suffering happens. Don't get wrong, some suffering happens as a result of a bad decision someone else made or one you have made.

We are called to comfort those in suffering. James tells us that "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction" (James 1:27). Paul wrote that God is a God of all comfort, "who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God" (2 Corinthians 1:4).

When one of church members, who is younger than me, was diagnosed with cancer, I went to see him in the hospital comforting him because I know what it feels like to be someone who just turned 30 and hearing that news. I remember telling him, "Don't let anyone tell you that because of your sin that God is punishing you." My words meant a lot to him because I had the feeling that someone either did or would have mention that.

When someone is suffering, we need to comfort them even it is just being in the same room with them without saying a word. Let us not be Job's three friend who were miserable comforters in his darkest hour.