Weep With Those Who Weep...

Counseling is an often-used word today, but what do we really understand of it from a Biblical perspective? The Book of Job is replete with lessons on suffering, but one of the greatest that we can apply to the church body is that of how to counsel and how not to counsel those who are hurting? Counseling can do harm. Job evidently took some time to recover from his friends’ “counseling.” Recovery only came after Job forgave and prayed for his counselors. (Job 42:10)

Let’s revisit Job’s counselors: They wept. They mourned. They sat with Job in the dirt, in shocked grief, speechless, for seven long days. Great start! They might have done well to just pack up their stuff and leave at this point. But, like so many of us, they became impatient and instead of filling their divinely appointed role of comforter, they chose the world’s preferred alternative of claiming godlike knowledge. They focused their efforts on becoming superior-advice-giving-therapists, rather than comforting and counseling their friend as a peer.

When they saw him…they began to weep aloud …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 2:12-13

Like Job’s friends, we also tire of being in the dirt with our hurting, depressed, and often-irritable sisters and brothers. We want to dust ourselves off and show that we’re above that sort of thing. We refer our hurting friends to secular therapists and best-seller books. We rely less on God and our divinely appointed role as comforters and defer to a therapeutic culture, that looks beneath every hurt, pain and struggle in life and finds a psychological disorder that needs repair; and more often than not: a pill. What’s really going on is a soul crying out for what only Jesus Christ can provide. We need to quit relying on professionals to fix damaged “psyches.”

The problem is disconnected human souls. The church is designed to “grow and build itself up in love, as each part does its work.” (Ephesians 4:16) Just as spiritual gifts are to be used for the entire church body – so is its capacity to listen, understand, empathize, and nourish. If you’ve ever received comfort from God – no matter how small - you have something in you that could deeply impact someone else who is hurting.

…. the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.

- II Corinthians 1:4

You can stimulate the lonely, revitalize the discouraged and introduce hope into the lives of people who feel rejected and useless. Even if you yourself feel rejected and useless. Look at Jesus for inspiration. He is – after all - the Wonderful Counselor. (Isaiah 9:6) He was the Son of the God of the Universe! Yet he was humiliated his entire life. He was despised and rejected. (Isaiah 53:3) He was physically vulnerable, weak, tempted, subject to pain, and as the final disgrace, rejected by God. (Matt. 27:46) We see him tired, thirsty, in tears, impoverished, ridiculed. Scripture stresses that the thing that equipped Jesus for his ministry was that he became like those he was called to help. Today, we’ve somehow established that only those exalted to godlike status holding PhD’s are empowered to minister and counsel. Nothing could be further from the truth. Even, the most renowned Christian counselors have said that they are only able to truly help people when they put aside their academic training and rely upon the Lord to direct them. And isn’t this what each of us is called to do?

Much heartache could be averted in the body of Christ if we could learn to “weep with those who weep.” (Romans 12:15) Not necessarily shed liquid tears, but unashamedly embrace the pain of others, and let it be obvious that “if one part of the body suffers, every part suffers with it.” (I Cor.12:26) It’s a huge shift in thinking, but the greatest need for the hurting and depressed in our community is not to have more counseling centers or psychotherapists, but a church body where Christ is exalted and ordinary people learn to shepherd the hurting because, Biblically speaking, simply being a friend, confidant, and sympathizer, is a lofty role that not even angels or God himself can fully fill. Only we, for instance, can give a hug or share coffee with a friend. People in pain need to know that they are not alone - they need people with whom they can relate. They don’t need advice as much as they need company and comfort. We don’t see Jesus asking his disciples for advice, but we often see Him asking for their company. Advice is cheap. Comfort is precious.

-Pastor Mark and Esthermay Bentley-Goossen