Learning to Abide with Others Well

I have spent some time studying Job and I think we all find things to identify with in his story.  The part I could never identify with was the behavior of Job’s friends.  How could friends who were so good to him in the beginning become so judgmental and accusatory to him as time progressed?  I wondered to myself, “Who is like that?”  It struck me that we all are, at times, even when we have the best intentions at heart.  We all struggle to be there well for those we love in their times of need.  We say the wrong thing, jump to the wrong conclusions, and give the wrong advice.  We sometimes add to the hurt without meaning to, rather than relieving it.  And as I considered that, the word “abide” popped up more and more in my mind.  It started me on a quest to learn a little more about how to abide well, or at least to abide better than I have been.

I want to be a good abider and have others abide well with me.

According to Miriam-Webster, to abide is to bear patiently, endure without yielding, wait for, accept without objection, or remain stable.  As I read those definitions, I thought of the verse about love in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7: “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”  In other words, love abides.  And I want to be a good abider, and have loved ones who abide well with me.  My challenge is to set myself aside in those moments when I want to abide with someone else so I can be fully present to them, rather than building myself up. 

Job’s friends did something remarkable.

Let’s go back to Job’s friends.  At first, they are fantastic abiders.  In Job chapter 2, starting in verse 11, Job’s three friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, get together and decide they are going to visit their friend, Job, to sympathize with him and comfort him.  Even when they first see him from a distance, they are so shocked at his condition they begin to weep, tear their clothing, and put dirt on their heads in mourning.  Job must have been in a horrific state.  Then they did something remarkable.  Job 3:13 says, “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.”  Wow.  The first thing that goes through my head is amazement that he had three friends who were willing to sit on the hard ground for seven days and nights with him.  In our world of rushing and doing and being more, we feel pretty good when we whip up a casserole and sit for a couple of hours with our hurting friends.  When is the last time you had someone sit with you for seven days, even on your comfy sofa, let alone outside on the ground?  That is some superstar abiding.  But as amazing as that is, what they didn’t do is even more amazing.

Abiding does not mean me having to fix anything.

I don’t know about you, but I am uncomfortable with silence if it goes on too long.  I am uncomfortable with sitting and doing nothing for too long, too.  That is why I shake my head in utter disbelief that four people could sit on the ground together for seven days without anyone uttering a word.  I would have lasted maybe ten minutes before I was trying to fix the situation.  I would have started pouring out the platitudes, dispensing the advice, and laying on the love.  And that is why I have some lessons to learn about abiding.  There is nothing in the definition of the word “abide”, or even in 1 Corinthians 13, about my having to fix anything.  Love is not about fixing.  Love is about being present.  Job’s friends were doing the most loving and respectful thing they possibly could.  They were being present, and at the same time, allowing Job to tell them what he needed and wanted in his time of great distress.  And they continued on, waiting for Job to speak for seven days!  They didn’t try to conform his grief to their timetable.  They let him be what he needed to be in that moment without judgment and even without words.  That is powerful.

It became more about Job’s friends than about Job’s suffering.

Then Job’s friends show us all that they were as human as we are.  Job finally opens his mouth.  He unleashes a lament on his friends about how depressed and hopeless he feels, how he wants to die, and a lot of asking “why”.  The friends do a great job of letting Job get it all out, but when Job finishes, the temptation to fix becomes too great.  Maybe they had a lot of time to think while they sat there for seven days.  Maybe they passed the time by coming up with their own ideas of why Job was suffering and exactly what he needed to do to have it all end.  It wasn’t like they had anything else to do for all that time on the ground.  For the next 30-plus chapters, the friends start dispensing advice, giving their opinions on what Job did wrong to cause the situation, and telling Job to just fix it and get over it already.  All of a sudden, it is about the friends much more than it is about Job’s suffering.  Well-meaning as they obviously were, their need to control, show their own wisdom, and force Job to move on caused Job more pain rather than less.  In the end, Job even calls God into question, and who wouldn’t after all of that?

The most healing thing we can do is to be present and to witness their pain.

This episode from the Bible made me think.  What is it that we do wrong that inadvertently hurts those that we truly just love and want to help?  I thought back to things that I had been told that shut me off and made me feel unheard and unseen, as well as those that made me feel supported and safe. I also did some research on how to talk to the hurting people in our lives.  What I found was that the most healing thing that we can do, just like Job’s friends, is to be present and to witness our loved one’s pain.  The most damaging thing someone can experience is to suffer alone.  To not have whatever crushing, horrific event that changed the course of their lives recognized by anyone else.  Nothing will make you feel more worthless, hopeless, or meaningless than having no one even notice that you are hurting.  Those words that we all struggle with are never the thing that heals.  What heals is to have someone who will sit with you and see all the brokenness and ugliness of that moment of your life and just abide – be patient, accept, and remain. 

First, be patient.

But just like Job’s friends, there will be a time that your loved one wants to talk.  So how do we keep our broken tongues from getting us in trouble and causing more hurt?  Let’s break down the meaning of the word “abide”.  First, be patient.  You do not know the entirety of a person’s life.  You do not know the history that is also playing into the pain your loved one is suffering.  What might be a minor setback to one person will be a paralyzing flashback to a life of hurt with someone else.  You do not have enough information to set someone else’s grief and healing timeline.  The worst thing you can say is “You need to get over this and move on.”  It makes the hurting person feel invalidated, broken, and small.  And I know in myself that when I am tempted to say something like that, it is not from a place of love for them.  It is because their grieving has become inconvenient for me, and I don’t want to have to deal with it anymore.  I have become impatient.  To be fair to myself, there truly are times when I am going through things and no longer have the emotional bandwidth to be as fully present for someone else.  But at those times, it would be better to just be honest and tell them I love them, but I need a little space before I can come back and be present with them again.  I can always assure them that my love and support has not stopped and that I will be there as I can.  And I can be diligent about following up as I have the ability.  But trying to force them to heal so that I can go on with my own life is the opposite of abiding and loving.

Accept them where they are.

Next, we need to accept where they are without judgment and without trying to fix anything. We jump to judgment without even realizing it, just like Job’s friends.  We pour out religious platitudes, like “God is good – you just need to trust Him more,” which is really a way to say they don’t have enough faith.  Or we tell them that everyone is suffering, and others have it worse than them.  Or even worse, we start telling them about how bad we’ve had it.  This is us, judging a life and situation we have not walked through, and it tells them that they are selfish and weak for hurting.  We also need to hold off on the fixing, even if the fixing is what makes us feel better.  I am a fixer – it is what I have always done.  I have learned it is how I kept myself safe.  The desire to fix people, though, is never really about them.  It is about us trying to fix brokenness in ourselves that we don’t really want to look at.  We try to get people to be something they are not to feel better about who we are.  And that is hurtful.  Saying things like, “Why can’t you just do this, or be more like that,” hurts. 

Remain with them and keep remaining.

Next, we need to remain.  We need to be willing for our help to be a little inconvenient to us at times.  That is also what love is about.  Sometimes the other person has to be the focus for a little while, even at some sacrifice to ourselves.  In a balanced relationship, they will in turn focus on us in our time of need.  We need to be willing to give them more than ten minutes of abiding, even if it causes some discomfort.  Just endure.  Just be present.  Just witness their suffering, and trust that in the witnessing alone, you are healing them.  The fact that Job’s friends were still there after seven days spoke volumes to Job in terms of the love and trust he could develop with them.  Only imagine what it would have meant to Job if they could have consistently been there for him for weeks and months without resorting to judgment.  Sometimes we think we can just fly in, drop off our gift of love, and then fly back out.  Love is being there patiently, even when our loved one is still hurting several months out.

Lord Jesus, help me abide more like that!

So what should we say?  I can’t just be silent – it would be too awkward and weird.  As I have studied this, those who are experts in grief and trauma counseling say we should use the following phrases: “I am so sorry for what you are going through,” “That must be incredibly painful,” “I love you and support you as you walk through this,” “In what way can I support you,” “Thank you for telling me,” “I can’t imagine how you are feeling but I am here for you,” and most beautifully, “I’ll stay with  you – we don’t have to talk or anything – and when it is over, I will still be here.”  That last one changed my entire view of how to be present with people.  It is so much like how God is with us.  He abides with us every minute of every day, witnessing our lives.  Even when we don’t want to talk to Him, He is there.  Even if He is not speaking verbally to us, He is there.  And even to the end of our days, and into eternity, He will be there.  Lord Jesus, help me to abide more like that!

I hope today’s message touched your heart, increased your understanding, and encouraged you.  Praying the peace and comfort of Christ Jesus on your life.

For a deeper dive into understanding how the misuse of spiritual platitudes can sometimes hurt instead of heal, here is a great podcast by Dr. Alison Cook:

Episode 47: Spiritual Bypassing vs. Embodied Faith & How Not to Harm Those Who Are Hurting, Including Yourself