How to Walk with Those Who are Suffering?

Something recently caught my heart about suffering:

In a Christianity Today article, Dorothy and Christopher Greco wrote:

“Rarely does any organization, Christian or otherwise, offer another option: that of accompanied suffering. To be transformed into the image of Christ, we must suffer as Christ did, a suffering too great for any individual to bear alone . . .

“Such suffering does not necessarily signal our failure or God’s abandonment. Instead, it invites us into God’s presence for the purpose of refining and changing us. Though we may desperately want God to change our circumstances, he may want to use our circumstances to change us.”

What is “accompanied suffering” and how do you do it?

First you have to accept that suffering is part of life.

In his book Rumors of Another World: What on Earth are We Missing? author Philip Yancey talks about the way many American Christians tend to deal with suffering as contrasted with believers in third world countries.

In the US, we pray that God will take away our suffering.

In other parts of the world, believers pray they will be able to endure the suffering and continue to glorify God.

In Fearfully and Wonderfully Made, Yancey talked about the affects of leprosy on patients. Leprosy deadens nerve endings and patients don’t realize they’ve hurt themselves because they doesn’t feel anything.

Without pain, they don’t realize they have a problem until something else calls attention to their injury. Suffering, in this case, has a purpose.

What would it mean for the church to walk with those who suffer?

I don’t like to suffer. I’m uncomfortable when people I care about suffer.

What do I say? How do I encourage? What can I do that will not insult and will help?

Sometimes I  pray that God will enable me to be a blessing not a curse to people going through difficult times.

The Christian church is a hospital for those of us with broken souls. Click to Tweet

We take the tattered pieces of hearts, the lost parts of our souls, and we bring them to a place where we can find restoration, hope, encouragement.

It takes people to help us hear the good news that Jesus saves all sinners; loves everyone, and has his hands open to receive those who want his forgiveness.

We who believe, however, need to be Jesus’ hands and feet. The body of Christ, the believers, are those who have the feet to walk, the hands to bind up, the ears to hear, the hearts to understand, and the words to pray.

Jesus could have spent his entire life healing people. He did a lot of healing while on earth, but you notice he did not set up a hospital in Capernaum and heal everyone who walked in.

That wasn’t his purpose. He came that we might have life more abundant. He came to set people free from the burden of sin that separated them from God.

Suffering drove people to him. Once in his presence, he healed–most of them.

But the Creator of the Universe demonstrated in Matthew 8:5-13 that he didn’t even need to see or touch a person to heal them.

The Roman centurion demurred when Jesus asked if he should visit the servant. “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed.”

Which is exactly what happened. The servant needed his master to “go to bat” for him, to seek out Jesus for the healing. And Jesus healed–without ever seeing the man.

Why didn’t God just heal all the people with problems in Israel?

Why doesn’t He heal all the people with problems today?

Perhaps God has a purpose for suffering we can’t see? Click to Tweet

Obviously, not everyone is healed. Countless folks suffer. Many people never have pain-free days.

We used to pray on a prayer chain that God would give the people we were praying for the healing they needed most.

The “presenting” problem might be a broken foot or severe migraines, but maybe they needed to resolve a relationship issue and find peace first.

Maybe forgiveness issues needed to be addressed. Maybe someone needed to help them?

That didn’t take away their need for physical pain relief, but it might deal with the emotional agony that kept them from Jesus.

Hands and feet. Voices and encouragement. Binding up the broken-hearted. These are hard jobs–only made possible by the power of prayer–but they’re needed, for our sake as well as those who are suffering.

Do we  have a role in another person’s suffering? Click to Tweet