When people don’t understand our suffering, we have our Friend

Job’s friends started well. They visited to “show him sympathy and comfort him” (Job 2:11). They mourned with him; they wordlessly sat with him, “for they saw that his suffering was very great” (Job 2:13).

Maybe they didn’t know what to say? 

Job himself was the “first to speak,” honestly sharing his pain…and then, their torrents of judgmental words began. Perhaps they thought they were “speaking the truth in love” (Eph. 4:15), but God tells us they weren’t speaking what “is right” about Him (Job 42:7). 

Have you experienced this? I certainly have. The condemning shame and agonizing loneliness reveal much when this happens. 

Our “friends” who judge our hearts as we suffer

They worsened Job’s suffering through their presumptive, critical expressions of what they perceived of Job’s heart, compounded by a wrongful understanding of God and the role of suffering in a believer’s life. They connected Job’s suffering with their assumption of his sins. Some of what they shared were Biblical truths, but those truths were tainted with lies.

It made Job feel like “a byword of the peoples…one before whom men spit” (Job 17:6), heightening his feelings of hopelessness. 

Beloved in Christ, many around us today can react similarly and for the same reasons. So, suffering can feel so lonely and isolating. We ache for loved ones, friends, and professional caregivers to understand and offer comfort and hope, don’t we?

Yet, many don’t do this well, so we feel unloved and sometimes judged in our suffering. I often wonder why we expect empathetic comfort. After all, humans are all sinners. Even believers, saved by grace, still have sin natures within. So sometimes, their words can hurt.

Our Friend who knows our heart, Jesus Christ

Perhaps, in those moments, Jesus gently calls to us…

Jesus! What a Friend for sinners! 

Jesus! Lover of my soul; 

friends may fail me, foes assail me, 

He, my Savior, makes me whole. 

(“JESUS! WHAT A FRIEND FOR SINNERS!”, CHAPMAN, J. W., 1910) 

Lord, Comforter, Spirit of Christ dwelling within,

You know our hearts, thoughts, emotions, grief, and losses. Illuminating God’s Word to our hearts, You perfectly comfort and gently convict us of any sin, but as those who no longer bear condemnation for our sin (John 3:16-17).

In moments when we feel lonely, misunderstood, unloved, or even condemned by well-meaning others, You beckon us to the cross, where we find continual grace, perfect love, and complete victory as we suffer. We find rest for our souls.

Jesus! What a strength in weakness! 

Let me hide myself in him; 

tempted, tried, and sometimes failing, 

He, my strength, my victory wins. 

Longing for Jesus, our Friend

Jesus! What a guide and keeper! 

While the tempest still is high, 

storms about me, night o’ertakes me, 

He, my pilot, hears my cry. 

Is our desire for someone to “get this” actually our longing for You, dear Jesus, our thirst for our true home, in which no sin exists?

Oh, triune God, You understand…so our suffering can become a deepened time of intimate fellowship with You, of abiding in Christ, seeking to hear Your voice speak back to our cries through Your Word. 

Jesus! What a help in sorrow! 

While the billows o’er me roll, 

even when my heart is breaking, 

He, my comfort, helps my soul. 

Forgiving others, with the help of our Friend Jesus

Jesus! I do now receive Him, 

more than all in Him I find; 

He hath granted me forgiveness, 

I am His, and He is mine. 

Perhaps, in our desperate desire for compassionate mercy from others, our suffering is something You’re using to help us learn (and re-learn) forgiveness, to love enemies who hurt us, and to extend grace to those who do not offer grace to us.

Oh, this is so hard when we’re experiencing physical and emotional suffering! 

By Your Spirit’s work, help us do this. Jesus Himself continually wrestled with false accusations and abandonment of friends, as Job did. So, please empower us, Holy Spirit.

For what did our Friend, our Beloved Savior, pray as He suffered? 

“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34 ESV).

Hallelujah! What a Savior! 

Hallelujah, what a Friend! 

Saving, helping, keeping, loving, 

He is with me to the end. 

In the name of our Friend, our Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ, amen.

Material adapted from Singing the Gospel to Job: Finding Hope in Suffering, Lauri A. Hogle, © 2022

This week’s playlist gift and other resources

Sister in Christ, let’s simply come to Jesus in the hurt. This week’s playlist gift will help us do that, bringing the pain to Him, remembering what He’s done for us in taking all of our sin and shame. We sing some of this week’s Scriptures, internalizing them for the moments when we feel condemned or misunderstood by others. We remind our hearts of “whatever is true” and ask for our Friend’s help to deal with all our relationships, especially in the loneliness of suffering.

If you’d like to sing-pray along with me, sign up below, and my playlist gift will come to your email along with prayer from a suffering sister who walks alongside you on the hard journey. 

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