Great suffering

When you suffer do you have people around you who are willing to suffer with you?

When times are toughest and it seems like nothing is going your way, do you have friends who will come see you?

I want you to also think about it this way. Are you that friend? Are you going to be the friend that spends time driving to be with someone who is really struggling or do you put your agenda above theirs.

As humans we feel things, we get sad, we mourn, and we grieve. No matter how hard you try to be happy all the time, you just can't do it. We long to have people that we can talk too.

In Job chapter 2, he is continuing not to sin no matter how hard things are for him.

When Job's three friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite, heard about all the troubles that had come upon him, they set out from their homes and met together by agreement to go and sympathize with him and comfort him. When they saw him from a distance, they could hardly recognize him; they began to weep aloud, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads. 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. (Job 2:11-13)

Are you the three friends that traveled to console their friend who had lost everything or do you just send a nice text and hope that they feel better? For me I have been both. Yesterday I drove to Warsaw to grab lunch with one of my friends because he had gone through a break up this past week. He really made it know how thankful he was that I came down to see him. I could've sent him a nicely worded text that would've made him feel a little better during the 10 seconds it would take him to read it. Plus, he probably would've forgotten about the text as soon as he shut his phone off. I wanted to encourage my friend in the best way that I could, and that was driving to grab a meal together and investing my time in him. Sometimes we might not be in driving distance, but are you sending a text or making a phone call? The way in which we encourage someone is more important than the encouragement itself.

A lot of times, we struggle with what we should say. Being only human we only have so many good things that we can say to help someone feel better. Sometimes the best way to make someone feel better is silence. Job's friends sat with Job in silence for seven days and seven nights. I can't sit in silence for more than 10 minutes, because it just gets awkward. But I try and I am working on it. When we struggle with what to say, perhaps what he or she needs most is our presence, showing that we care.

Next time you have a friend who is going through something tough, I hope that you remember this post and remember the sacrifices that his friends made to show that they were there for their brother. They traveled the distance...and spent seven days and seven nights in silence to show that they were there for him. I know we are busy, but I am sure that you have some time that you can offer.