“Love One Another”

These are some of my posts on Christians becoming the family that we are in Christ. I’ve also placed pages on ministry under this parent page because ministry is loving one another.

Some of these posts may be hard to read—I know some of them were hard to write! There is some repetition because they were not written at the same time, but I think some ideas are important enough to be ongoing and repeated themes.

I think this is a trumpet to sound for this generation of believers.

If you need consolation and validation, may these posts encourage and comfort you. If you need conviction and change, may they open your eyes to your brothers and sisters in Christ.

“This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends if you do what I command you.”
John 15:12-14

May we all learn to be tenderhearted loving each other in deed and truth.

“…love one another deeply, from the heart.”
1 Peter 1:22b*

“The Mark of a Christian”

Several months after I became a Christian I attended a fall conference for college students from several universities within the state. I wasn’t doing very well that weekend, and Saturday evening when I went to my bunk I found a small packet on my pillow. I opened the bit of paper and read, “This was given to me in love. I give it to you so the love will grow and spread.”

Wrapped inside the note was a silver fish pendant with ἰχθύς , the Greek word for fish, inscribed within its outline. The paper wasn’t signed, but I found the person who had written it. She told me she’d noticed I was depressed and wanted to give me the fish.

The night before Jesus died, He said to His disciples:

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
John 13:34-35

Later that same evening He prayed:

“I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me.

“The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me.”
John 17:20-23

Francis Schaeffer said the love of Christians for one another is The Mark of a Christian, and in the book he wrote by that name he called John 17:21, The Final Apologetic. This is the apologetic given by Christ Himself to all peoples and for all times. Questions asked of Christians may change according to the issues of the day, but our love remains the mark that we are His disciples, and it remains the final apologetic to the world that Jesus was, in fact, sent by God, and that God, in fact, loves those who have believed in Jesus. Our love for each other proclaims to all, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son…” Our love for each other proclaims to all, “But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ…”

So what about the times when those who say they are Christians do not love their fellow believers? Those times when Christian love seems as broken and cracked as the ἰχθύς wheel symbol on the right? This is something I have thought about a great deal because it has bothered me a great deal. I want to answer by first looking at why and how Christians are able to love one another.

Edmund Clowney comments on 1 Peter 1:22–23:

Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart. For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.” [1 Peter 1:22–23]

…he urges Christians to love one another, he shows that what we are to do is grounded in what Christ has done. God’s word renews, cleanses, and matures us for a life of love….

…Peter requires love for fellow-Christians as the great mark of true holiness. He is not satisfied with tolerance or acceptance, far less with formalized distance. He will have love, sincere love, without pretense or hypocrisy. (In the New Testament, ‘unhypocritical’ always describes love.) But even sincerity is not enough: our love must be ‘deep’ and intense. Peter uses a word that means ‘stretched’ or ‘strained’….

How can such love be commanded? …For such love to appear, the pride and selfishness of our alienation from God must be swept away. They must be replaced by a heart made new with the motives of grace. It is the word of God, the good news of the gospel, that is the means both of our new birth and of our nurture in holiness.

Because God’s love is the source of ours, the message of his love is what kindles ours. Christian love may be demonstrated by a hug, a holy kiss, or a helping hand, but Christian love cannot be transmitted that way. Christian love is born as Christians are born: through the truth of the gospel….²

As I mulled over Clowney’s words, I realized that in the churches and individuals in which I have seen and known the greatest love, there has been the greatest gratitude for God’s grace and forgiveness. A ‘first love’ for God has been present, and a hunger for His Word—to read the Bible and understand the Bible in order to know and obey the living God revealed in the Bible. There has been within those churches faithful and fervent preaching and teaching of the Bible, week in and week out, and that teaching has born fruit in lives that were changed.

In those places in which love for fellow Christians has been thin and sparse, gratitude for God’s grace has been thin and sparse, and people no longer “in humility receive the Word implanted.” Not always, but usually the Word has not been faithfully and fervently taught by men who themselves have received it in humility.

The New Testament is also clear that there will be those within the church who appear to be Christians, but in reality are not. Paul told the elders from the church at Ephesus that savage wolves would arise who wouldn’t spare the flock, and that from among them men would arise who would speak perverse things and draw disciples after them. Over and over in 1 John, John emphasizes the link between our love for God and our love for each another, with one demonstrating the reality of the other.

We used to sing a song in my early years as a Christian:

Beloved, let us love one another:
for love is of God;
and every one that loveth is born of God,
and knoweth God.
He that loveth not knoweth not God;
for God is love.
So, Beloved, let us love one another.
1 John 4: 7 and 8.

After almost forty years, I still have that fish. At low points in my life it still reminds me that, yes, love is the mark of a Christian, and, yes, that that love confirms that God, in fact, sent Jesus, and that God, in fact, loves me.

So, Beloved, let us love one another…

Organizing Love

I want to tell you a story about a friend of mine named Lisa. Over ten years ago I was quite ill to the point of being almost bedridden. My husband, who at the time had a very understanding boss, would help get the day started with our children and then go to work about 9:00. I was very lonely, and we had no church. After visiting one church, a couple of kind women volunteered to come over and clean my house. They did this with love and without judgment of me. One of the women was Lisa.

Lisa started coming to visit me, listening to my lament and praying with me. I was still reeling from other events in my life prior to my illness. With a kind and understanding heart, Lisa heard my doubts and my cries, with love and without judgment. At her suggestion, I started memorizing Psalm 27. Now at the time, I could barely manage to remember a verse a week, but she never treated me as inferior.

After a few weeks I heard her tell the story of her life to a group of women. Eight months earlier in February, her oldest son had committed suicide. She had already lived through other family deaths in horrific circumstances, and this seemed to be the final blow to her. She told God that if that’s the kind of God He was, she didn’t know if she wanted to believe in Him anymore.

When Mother’s Day came around, as you can imagine, it was a heartbreaking day for her. That afternoon, however, the words of Psalm 119:11, came to her mind, “Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee,” (KJV); Lisa decided she didn’t want to sin against God anymore. She begin to memorize Psalm 27, and from there she went on to Psalm 13, and then memorized Psalm after Psalm. We sat there listening to her with tears streaming down our faces. God comforted and restored her heart, and she in turn was strengthening us as she stood there, a testimony of trust in Him in the darkest of circumstances. God had not told her any whys about her life, but He had reached into her heart and turned her back to trust in Him. She later told me that she lived by these words of Paul:

For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.
2 Corinthians 4:17-18 (KJV)

On the way home with her that evening, I told her I couldn’t believe how patient and loving she had been with me because her year had held such catastrophe compared to mine. She told me she didn’t compare, she just wanted to help as she was able.

We need more Christians like Lisa. Too often when faced with someone in pain, that person is ignored, judged or held at arms length. There are times the church appears to believe that if a group is organized, then love will happen. Organizing can present a façade of ministry without actually accomplishing anything. Love occurs and ministry happens when one person reaches out to give what another truly needs—without presumption of what the need is and without pride of heart. This means the other person must be thought about and considered—Who is this person? What is he like? What does she need? Organizing should be be done because it will meet a need, and not because we have failed to consider each other and think it will meet a need. Philippians 2 should be written on our hearts.

I realize that different people have different abilities, yet far too few are willing to do the hard work of walking with someone through a valley of affliction. I think sometimes the suffering of another person causes our own inward fears and doubts to resonate. We cannot organize a group or steer someone to a meeting as a means of avoidance of the problems of others or of our own anxieties. We must risk not knowing the answers or whys, and leave those in God’s hands. God has called us to love one another.

If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.

And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away.

For we know in part and we prophesy in part; but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away.

When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things.

For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known.

But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Pursue love…
1 Corinthians 13–14:1a

Some of my posts could also be called journal entries. Blessings is a post I wrote last fall as I struggled to give thanks in the midst of suffering. Heartbreak was written in the ache of feeling abandoned. I’m including them here as an example of how hard the struggle to trust God can be in the midst of feeling unloved by other Christians. 

Blessings

I’m thankful for many things—my husband, my children and for various family and friends who are part of my life. I am grateful for strangers I have met who have encouraged me.

Over the past three years my family has been through difficult times, as you may have guessed from some of my writings. We’ve been in a state of shock, and we’ve grieved through severe loss. We’ve had a few people, such a very few, who have stayed with us and cared for us. But those who have been there have been guide- posts of hope to us as we’ve stumbled in a dark night. I’m grateful for them, and I couldn’t have lived through this time without them.

God has taught me more than I would ever have chosen to learn, and some things remain unsorted in my mind and heart. That’s one of the most important things I’ve learned. Some things remain unsorted, and they’ll remain that way, until God sorts them out, whether in this life or the next.

In suffering we always want to sort things out and blame someone, and, as Job found out, many times others want to blame you for your suffering. While we may bear responsibility in some instances, there are many times the plain truth is that it is extraordinarily difficult to accept the reality of living in a fallen world and acknowledge that sometimes God allows suffering to occur for no discernible reason. It’s hard enough to learn to walk in trust with God when living through such times, but affliction is exacerbated, again, as Job found out, when your counselors refuse to accept God’s sovereignty and goodness in the face of pain that has no known reason.

At such times what is needed is not answers—there are none, and answers can also be attempts to put you or God in a labeled box—what it is needed is companionship. This may sound simple to give, but it is amazing how few will be a friend.

Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor. For if either of them falls, the one will lift up his companion. But woe to the one who falls when there is not another to lift him up.
Ecclesiastes 4:9-10

My husband and I have talked about this, and one thing we have conjectured is that people are frightened by suffering. Suffering when there is due cause is easy for others on the outside to handle, because then they merely have to avoid taking the actions that led to the problems they see. But to see suffering without due cause, when the only choice is to accept the sovereignty of God, well, that is frightening, because there can be no avoidance to deflect that kind of suffering, only acceptance that God is God.

Sometimes I have felt as if I have a communicable disease, and no one wants to get close for fear they will catch it. It is one thing to hear or read about suffering when a person is through the valley and out on the other side—we find encouragement in the writings of someone like Corrie ten Boom—it is entirely different, however, to voluntarily enter the valley of another and walk beside someone. You must be willing to face your own fears and doubts about your reaction to God if He were to allow similar circumstances to occur in your life. To be willing to do that for another is love indeed.

Os Guinness’ words have been of immense help to me:

When a Christian comes to faith his understanding and his trust go hand in hand, but as he continues in faith his trust may sometimes be called to go on by itself without his understanding….

As believers we cannot always know why, but we can always know why we trust God who knows why, and this makes all the difference…

…If we do not know why we trust God, then we will always need to know exactly what God is doing in order to trust him…

If, on the other hand, we do know why we trust God, we will be able to trust him in situations where we do not understand what he is doing….

At root there are only two basic questions for faith—Is God there? And is God good?

…Face to face with mystery, and especially the mystery of evil, the faith that understands why it has come to trust must trust where it has not come to understand….

Can faith bear the pain and trust God, suspending judgement and resting in the knowledge that God is there, God is good, and God knows best? Or will the pain be so great that only meaning will make it endurable so that reason must be pressed further and further and judgements must be made?…To suffer is one thing, to suffer without meaning is another, but to suffer and choose not to press for any meaning is different again.

I have found that those who help are those who have suffered. It is not enough, however, to have been there, done that—those who extend compassion are those who have also, in the words of James, “…let endurance have its perfect result…” They have come through suffering without bitterness or denial or avoidance of its reality. They know how hard it is. They have learned to trust God. They shared in His comfort. And now they hold others up and comfort them.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ. But if we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; or if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which is effective in the patient enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer; and our hope for you is firmly grounded, knowing that as you are sharers of our sufferings, so also you are sharers of our comfort.
2 Corinthians 1:3-7

I’ve thought about the parable of the Good Samaritan, and I’ve wondered if Jesus chose the Samaritan to show compassion not only to underscore the hardheartedness of the religious leaders, but also because a Samaritan would have known what it was to suffer and to need compassion. I’m also fascinated that of the ten lepers healed by Jesus, the only one who came back and thanked Him was a Samaritan.

One of the greatest differences I see between today and the time in which I became a Christian is that the number of people willing to walk with others in affliction is greatly diminished. This is one of the greatest fault lines in the Christian church today. I’m not sure of all the reasons, but I think it always comes back to gratitude for God’s grace and forgiveness. A ‘first love’ for God reverberates in love for each other.

In Pilgrim’s Progress, Christian and Hopeful are imprisoned and beaten by Giant Despair, until Christian remembers he holds the key, Promise, that will open any lock in Doubting Castle. As they leave,

Then Christian pulled it out of his bosom, and began to try at the dungeon-door, whose bolt, as he turned the key, gave back, and the door flew open with ease, and Christian and Hopeful both came out. Then he went to the outward door that leads into the castle-yard, and with his key opened that door also. After he went to the iron gate, for that must be opened too; but that lock went desperately hard, yet the key did open it.

Now, when they were gone over the stile, they began to contrive with themselves what they should do at that stile, to prevent those that shall come after from falling into the hands of Giant Despair. So they consented to erect there a pillar, and to engrave upon the side thereof this sentence: “Over this stile is the way to Doubting Castle, which is kept by Giant Despair, who despiseth the King of the Celestial country, and seeks to destroy his holy pilgrims.” Many, therefore, that followed after, read what was written, and escaped the danger.

There are times we drop the key or we cannot find it for the tears. We then need loving friends to pick it up, place it in our hands and help us open that iron gate whose lock is so “desperately hard.”

For the despairing man there should be kindness from his friend;
Lest he forsake the fear of the Almighty.
Job 6:14

I thank God for those friends.

Heartbreak

The wear and tear of the past few weeks have been almost more than I could bear. Some of the interactions I have been through have been so corrosive—they’ve been like having caustic acid thrown on my heart. The daily tension of not knowing what I may hear next is ripping me apart.

I only have one Christian I can talk with face to face who consistently walks through my valley with me. Just one. (That’s with the exception of my dear husband and our children—and we’re all in the same boat that’s been taking on water for quite a while). I have been given advice by people who didn’t know me and didn’t take the time to understand who I was. Then when I objected, rather than getting to know me and staying in my life, they left. I have been told I was being prayed for, but no one has called to listen or to give me empathy or to weep with me. Some have known our heartache, but haven’t even bothered to give us a word expressing concern or care. People are friendly at meetings, but no one invites us into their life or acts to become a part of ours.

Where is the church? I don’t know. Love grows cold, and people would rather say be warm, be filled, than do the labor of love. Perhaps I wouldn’t be so affected if I hadn’t become a Christian during the days of the Jesus Movement and actually seen, known and experienced Christians who loved one another fervently and from the heart. We went through things together.

I’ve written of this before, but I’ll say it again: we are to be a part of each others’ daily lives, considering how we can urge one another on to love and good deeds and encouraging one another so that in affliction and temptation we won’t be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin, but will believe, love and obey God, and together glorify Him with our lives.

“Now may the God who gives perseverance and encouragement grant you to be of the same mind with one another according to Christ Jesus, so that with one accord you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore accept one another, just as Christ also accepted us to the glory of God.”
Romans 15:5-7

Look at this word accept:

To take to oneself…or to receive…signifying a special interest on the part of the receiver, suggesting a welcome.¹

To receive, i.e., grant one access to one’s heart…²

Accept one another. Welcome one another. Receive one another. Have each other in your hearts. I’ve also mentioned that Paul’s opening words to the Philippians resonate with his love for them as he thanks God in his remembrance of them, as he joyfully prays for them, as he expresses confidence in God’s complete work in them. Look also at what he writes to the Thessalonians:

For we never came with flattering speech, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed—God is witness—nor did we seek glory from men, either from you or from others, even though as apostles of Christ we might have asserted our authority. But we proved to be gentle among you, as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children. Having so fond an affection for you, we were well-pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God but also our own lives, because you had become very dear to us.

For you recall, brethren, our labor and hardship, how working night and day so as not to be a burden to any of you, we proclaimed to you the gospel of God. You are witnesses, and so is God, how devoutly and uprightly and blamelessly we behaved toward you believers; just as you know how we were exhorting and encouraging and imploring each one of you as a father would his own children, so that you would walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory.
1 Thessalonians 2:5-12

The graphic above on the left with the people holding a net with a heart is titled Safety Net. The teachings in the New Testament all direct the church to be a safety net for their brothers and sisters in Christ. The nets of the church have too many holes and too many rents in their webbing. Too many people have fallen through and smashed onto the ground. I don’t want to be a casualty, but at this point perhaps I’m going to be one (I don’t mean leaving the Christian faith, but I mean breaking down); I’ve certainly broken some bones and have been hobbling along doing my best to walk forward on faltering feet. I see my children hobbling along and persevering. I am so proud of the way they have kept going. Yet who comes alongside us to help us? So few, so very few. I don’t know how many severe smash-ups the church will have to see before she wakes up and changes and starts loving the members of the body who are bleeding to death.

Paul told the Romans to weep with those who weep. Jesus said love one another, and love is to be the Mark of the Christian. The night before Jesus died, He said to His disciples:

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
John 13:34-35

By this all men will know. That’s the bottom line.

Shadow People

There are people in the shadows of many churches: the poor, the afflicted, the widows and singles, the married couples in difficulty, the parents and children in crisis, the jobless, the handicapped, the life-scarred, the strugglers—the different. Christians who don’t fit in and who live in the shadows.

These are the people who persevere sometimes alone and without encouragement except that which comes from their fellow Shadow People. These are the people who endure crass remarks of judgment from others within the church—who are given advice by those who haven’t taken the time to know them and find out who they are, let alone actually share their lives and walk with them as equals in Christ Jesus. These are the people to whom the church says, “I have no need of you.”

These are the people who are patronized and who live without respect because of their circumstances or their background. These are the people who are hesitant to reach out for help because of wounds inflicted on them by others because they struggle with problems or situations they cannot hide. These are the people who are unreceived and unwelcomed and shut out from the life of the church. These are the people who love Christ, but who live on the edge of breaking because they bear heavy burdens by themselves. These are people who sometimes finally do shatter under strain.

Some people start their Christian life 100 yards ahead of the starting blocks because they had Christian parents and years of security. Others start their Christian life 100 yards behind the starting blocks because they come from dysfunctional homes with parents who do not know Christ, and often they can barely hold their head above water. (There are a rare few who are neither ahead or behind because, while their background may not be Christian, their personality or support system means they don’t have quite so many things to overcome).

Often those who are ahead, rather than being of mutual help, hardly give a backward glance to those who are behind and stumbling. Why do I use the word mutual? Because those who have become Christians 100 yards behind are the ones who have so much to give in their witness of having known and seen and understood the chasm between darkness and light, of the difference between being dead in sin and being alive in Christ. Their difficult and wretched backgrounds have meant they had explosive delight and astonishment and joy in being forgiven and knowing God. They are the people of ‘First Love’.

My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism. For if a man comes into your assembly with a gold ring and dressed in fine clothes, and there also comes in a poor man in dirty clothes, and you pay special attention to the one who is wearing the fine clothes, and say, “You sit here in a good place,” and you say to the poor man, “You stand over there, or sit down by my footstool,” have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil motives?

Listen, my beloved brethren: did not God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him? But you have dishonored the poor man. Is it not the rich who oppress you and personally drag you into court? Do they not blaspheme the fair name by which you have been called?

If, however, you are fulfilling the royal law according to the Scripture, “YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF,” you are doing well. But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.
James 2:1–9

Rather than being considered rich in faith, the poor of the church are far more likely to be considered inadequate or deficient. Who is considered “spiritual” in your church? Married couples who prosper with a nice home and smart and healthy children? Walk into a church in the United States—your church—and consider the leaders and those who are in prominent places. Are they there because their spiritual gifts and character are evident and have qualified them for the work? Because they have shown by their deeds that they love the members of the church and are careful to teach them and to care for them? Consider what your church does. Who are ministries geared towards? Who does your church look out for?

Have you ever considered that Shadow People, because they have had their faith tried by fire, might be people in the church who have a great deal of knowledge about perseverance? You have read of Job and David and may think of them as great men of God, but how do you perceive those in your church who are suffering or for whom life is fraught with difficulties?

For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are, so that no man may boast before God.

But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption, so that, just as it is written, “LET HIM WHO BOASTS, BOAST IN THE LORD.”
1 Corinthians 1:26–31

Years ago I was in a church that, along with numerous college students, had some well-educated members and a few who were even affluent. Do you know who the most hospitable couple was in that church? The couple that had students over for Sunday lunch week after week, to watch television, to eat and to enjoy special events? A couple who lived in a small home—no family room, only a living room; no dining room, only a kitchen eating area. The wife was a homemaker and the husband was a blue collar worker; I don’t think either one had a college degree. Yet they opened their home to a half-dozen or so young adults who needed to know family life and see what a Christian home was like. Their eating area was so small that when all of us sat down to eat you could not move around the table. They were much loved, and some of the students even called them Ma and Pa. He was a deacon in the church, and he was the only deacon in whose home I ever ate a meal. The elders? There was one elder who frequently opened his home—not the wealthiest by any means—and the pastor’s wife met with me weekly to eat and talk.

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
John 13:34-35

I could tell you stories of self-important and insensitive barbs that Shadow People have endured. Things I’ve been told and things I’ve experienced. I could tell you about kindness and sensitivity shown to me by Shadow People while the strong pass me by. Are Shadow People perfect? No. But Shadow People know what it’s like to suffer, to be rejected and to live through days and nights when you feel no one has your back—that’s why they have a tendency to watch yours.

Do you know who the Shadow People are in your church? Do you know who they are in terms of their background and personality? Have you considered their strengths, or do you see only their weaknesses and feel superior? Do you understand and believe we are all one in Christ Jesus or do you make demarcations and see differences?

Does anyone in your church stay consistently in touch with the Shadow People in your church? To know their battles and their needs and to come alongside them to help? Or do you assume if they say nothing then they must be doing fine, rather than comprehending there may be hesitancy to express needs because of past rejections? Do you have a plan to help and do you actually do something, or is discussion about someone enough to make you feel you have ministered to them?

Do you know the stress of their family life? Of their loneliness? If someone weeps in front of you, do you listen and comfort and take action to ease their strain? Or do you assume someone else will do something? Do you hesitate because you feel awkward and your discomfort trumps their desolation? There are few things more devastating than to break down before other believers and then have no one express love or empathy or call or check to see how you are doing.

“This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends if you do what I command you.”
John 15:12-14

At times it seems hardly anyone is willing to inconvenience themselves, much less lay down their life. If you wonder why I have written such passionate posts interspersed with some that are much milder, it’s because I’m fighting a hard, hard battle not only to persevere, but to be balanced and sane. Sometimes the blows have hailed down upon me. God has held me together through His Word as I have read the Bible and written these posts. Some daily readings don’t stir me up inside, and some days are easier than others. With other posts I pour out my heart. I don’t know whether to cry or be angry, and sometimes I do both. I have to fight against bitterness. When you’re a Shadow Person you bear not only the suffering of your circumstances, but the suffering of feeling isolated and unloved.

My statistics page tells me the search terms used by people to find this blog. People frequently search for hope, and they find Anchor of Hope or its revision, A New Year’s Anchor of Hope. People search for psalms to read in despair, and there was one very poignant search for, why so many believers are so distant in times of despair. I don’t know who these people are, but when I see these phrases I pray for them.

I used the above Walter Langley painting, “Never Morning Wore To Evening But Some Heart Did Break,” in September in Organizing Love. It is usually searched for several times a week. I don’t know if people look for it because of the subject, the artist or both; I only know the painting is deeply moving in its depiction of a young woman with a breaking heart being comforted by an older woman who enters into the young woman’s pain with her own knowledge and understanding of suffering.

When I read the Bible’s words about the Christian life and then look at what my family is going through and consider what Christians go through elsewhere in the world, I find that what we endure is the normal Christian life and to be expected. We are to keep our eyes on Christ and follow Him. I know from past experience, however, that our way is made easier and more joyful when we walk together.

Life in this world can be messy, inexplicable and outside our control because we live in a world marred by sin. Have you come to realize that God in His sovereignty has allowed it to be that way, and that only He is in control? Do you distance yourself from those who live in messy situations because you only want to deal with things that can be quickly tidied and neatly boxed up?

A man once asked the Lord Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?”

Who is yours?

Suffering & Lovingkindness

For the despairing man there should be kindness from his friend;
Lest he forsake the fear of the Almighty.
Job 6:14

Because I’ve been writing about the book of Job, my husband asked if I could summarize the most important ways to help someone who is suffering. I think Job 6:14 gives us the crux of reaching out to those in pain. Hesed is the Hebrew word for kindness in Job 6:14, and in the King James Version of the Bible it is frequently translated as lovingkindness. R. Laird Harris writes,

The word “lovingkindness” of the KJV is archaic, but not far from the fulness of the meaning of the word.¹

And although lovingkindness is infrequently used today, it is a wonderful word— descriptive of both affection and of action, and both are needed by those who suffer.

How do you show lovingkindness to someone in despair? Here are my suggestions. I’ve alliterated the titles and given a brief descriptive phrase to help you remember each one before I go into details. As a reminder, memorization does not equate to ministry. Knowledge is only the first step.

Presence: Be there.

Presumption: Don’t do it.

Partner: Be one.

Prayer: Do it.

Persevere: Love.

Some of my comments are from posts I’ve already written on Job. Links to those posts are found in the heading at “My servant Job” under its parent page Anchor of Hope.

Presence: This was the one thing that Job’s friends did right. They came to Job, and they stayed with him. If you know of, or see someone in distress do you go to that person to help? Do you stay in touch to see how he or she is doing? Job’s friends came. Job’s friends stayed. They didn’t make a one-time visit and leave. Those who are suffering can’t leave—they must wait and live it out. You are able to leave the situation, but they cannot. You can help them by staying with them through regular visits or calls or e-mails. There may be physical or material help you can give, but don’t let that substitute for emotional and spiritual help. I think it can be easier at times to give physical help because then you can leave, having felt you have done your duty! Don’t leave! There are numerous studies about the destructive effects of solitude and the alleviating effects of relationships. It can be hard to ask for help when you’re suffering, especially if you’ve met with the passive rejection of a polite excuse or have even known active rejection. People don’t talk much today about prayer partners, but consider asking someone who is suffering to meet with you once a week to pray. Meet, listen and pray.

Your ongoing presence in someone’s life tells the person you care. When someone opens her heart to you, don’t listen once and then let weeks or months go by before asking how she is doing. No matter how sympathetic your initial listening was, that gap in time speaks loudly to her that her suffering really didn’t matter to you.

You don’t have to have great wisdom or know exactly what to say. Silence is fine; you don’t have to fill up the spaces with chatter. In his commentary on the book of Job, David Atkinson understands the crucial nature of presence as he writes, “Suffering presence is the powerful ministry of silent compassion.”²

This is what Stanley Hauerwas, in a book of this title, calls ‘suffering presence’. Indeed Hauerwas quotes this paragraph from Job [Job 2:11–13] as an introduction to one of his chapters in which he tells of his own ministry to a friend whose mother had just committed suicide:

As often as I have reflected on what happened in that short span of time I have also remembered how inept I was in helping Bob. I did not know what could or should be said. I did not know how to help him start sorting out such a horrible event so that he could go on. All I could do was be present. But time has helped me to realize that this is all he wanted, namely my presence. For as inept as I was, my willingness to be present was a sign that this was not an event so horrible that it drew us away from all other human contact. Life could go on…

I now think that at that time God granted me that marvellous privilege of being a presence in the face of profound pain and suffering, even when I did not appreciate the significance of being present.

Craig Dykstra has put it well:

Presence is a service of vulnerability. To be present to others is to put oneself in the position of being vulnerable to what they are vulnerable to, and of being vulnerable to them. It means being willing to suffer what the other suffers, and to go with the sufferer in his or her own suffering. This is different from trying to become the sufferer. Presence does not involve taking another’s place. That would be demeaning. It would suggest, ‘I can take your suffering better than you can, so move aside; I will replace you.’ Instead, presence involves exposing oneself to what the sufferer is exposed to, and being with the other in that vulnerability…³

This is learning to listen, to weep with those who weep. This is something my friend Lisa did for me. Do it for others with humility for someday you may need someone’s presence.

Presumption: The advice of Job’s friends was based on presumptions. They presumed to know the mind of God, and they presumed to know the heart of Job. They made Job’s suffering worse as they maligned his character, and their belief that the reason for his afflictions was a God-ordained quid pro quo relationship between sin and suffering, in my opinion, made his struggle to trust God far more difficult because Job knew his own integrity. Rather than presume, they needed to admit and affirm.

Job needed his friends to admit that Job’s affliction and sorrows were beyond their level of understanding. They should have admitted that there are times when the providence of God is beyond our understanding. Instead, they reduced suffering and God’s sovereignty down to their own terms and level. At the end of the book they are severely rebuked by God:

It came about after the LORD had spoken these words to Job, that the LORD said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “My wrath is kindled against you and against your two friends, because you have not spoken of Me what is right as My servant Job has. Now therefore, take for yourselves seven bulls and seven rams, and go to My servant Job, and offer up a burnt offering for yourselves, and My servant Job will pray for you For I will accept him so that I may not do with you according to your folly, because you have not spoken of Me what is right, as My servant Job has.”
Job 42:7–8

Job needed affirmation from them of their respect and love for him; respect, because they knew he was a godly man of integrity; and love, because he needed words and deeds that would console him and alleviate his pain in any way possible. More than anything else Job needed their affirmation of the goodness of God—and if they’d given him respect and love, I think it would have gone a long way towards helping Job trust in God.

How do you affirm the goodness of God to one who suffers? Pray for them. Listen, love and be with them. Be open and authentic about your own life and share the consolation you have received from God (2 Corinthians 1ff.). As you understand someone’s need and doubt, ask God for wisdom regarding the section of His Word that would build up, restore, clear and correct the ‘fog of war’ of suffering, and enable trust in God. If this seems to be a lot of effort and struggle expended for someone, you’re right. So many times people are crass and do harm because they don’t want to take the time or do the spiritual and emotional work involved. Giving a few words of clichéd advice may enable you to check off a duty done, but in 1 Thessalonians 1:3, Paul mentions the Thessalonians’ labor of love, and so it is. Your love lived out for someone who suffers is a reminder of God’s great love for him.

Think and pray and ask God for wisdom about what the person needs, rather than giving what you think he needs. Before you speak to someone who is suffering, do you take the time to genuinely consider who the person is and what he needs to hear? Do you listen and understand his perspective and see the individual? Or are you caught up in playing the role of counselor rather than actually being one? If your words aren’t well received, do you take the time to think over why they are not? Do you continue to try to help, or do you just leave? Consider the impact of what you say—don’t speak heedlessly or without thought—watch the response.

Assuring someone that God is sovereign is not necessarily a comforting thing. The person may already believe and know that—the spiritual battle may be believing in God’s love during a time of intensely feeling abandoned. This struggle with doubt can even be heightened in pain if the person previously knew continuous fellowship with God and worshiped Him as Job did, but now only knows and feels blow after blow from circumstances. Job’s need was to believe in God’s goodness, benevolence and personal care for him in the face of God’s inscrutable sovereignty in allowing his suffering.

Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar could never get past themselves to focus on helping Job. They remained caught up in their own fears and their own sense of insult when Job objected to their counsel. They sought to find a defect in Job to explain his suffering—not to alleviate his anguish, but to relieve their own fears. If you want to help someone who is suffering, then examine yourself before you give counsel: Am I searching for a defect in this person to explain their suffering? Am I looking for sin or for lack of spiritual maturity or for stupidity to explain their circumstances, or am I listening first and in humility asking God for wisdom in my response and words? Am I acting from my own fears? Am I trying to reassure myself? Am I doing this out of love?

It takes love to be willing to face your own fears and to help someone live through theirs. It takes love to be more concerned about how you can be of help to someone, than how you can reassure yourself. Anyone can listen to a lament, but it takes love to learn to give words of solace and care.

Partner: A key question to ask is, “What does the person need that he cannot give himself?” Ask God to enable you to discern those things only God can do—pray for those things and ask Him to act—but also ask God what He wants you to do—and do them.

In “The Right Way To Respond to Failure,” Peter Bregman writes that what we need after failure is not advice—most of us already know the platitudes—what we need is that which we cannot give ourselves, but must receive from someone else—empathy. He comments:

We tried to make her feel better by helping her see the advantage of failure, putting the defeat in context, teaching her to draw a lesson from it, and motivating her to work harder and get better so it doesn’t happen again.

But she didn’t need any of that. She already knew it. And if she didn’t, she’d figure it out on her own. The thing she needed, the thing she couldn’t give herself, the thing that Mimi reached out and gave her?

Empathy.

She needed to feel that she wasn’t alone, that we all loved her and her failure didn’t change that, She needed to know we understood how she was feeling and we had confidence that she would figure it out.

I wanted every leader, manager, and team member to see that, because the empathetic response to failure is not only the most compassionate, it’s also the most productive.

Empathy communicates trust. And people perform best when they feel trusted.⁴

His thought that empathy communicates trust is stunning—Job’s friends had no empathy, and they displayed no trust in Job’s knowledge, wisdom or integrity. They displayed no trust in him as a person that his reaction of intense grief was normal given his afflictions. While Job had not failed, his life had fallen apart and the accompanying feelings are similar. Job had more knowledge and understanding than his friends, and he is driven to tell them this when they lecture him, but Job could not give himself empathy, love and the resources to help himself and his family (remember his livelihood was wiped out).

I realize Bregman’s post isn’t an exact correlation with suffering, but I thought his insight was very helpful. You see, there are times when the person you are trying to help may already know every insight or bit of wisdom you can give. What is needed is what that person cannot give himself—the kind of solace and empathy expressed so profoundly in Paul’s injunction to weep with those who weep.

What does the person who suffers need that he cannot give himself? God has placed you in that person’s life for a reason. What are your spiritual gifts and abilities and how can you help?

This section is titled Partner because it’s important not only that you minister, but that you also allow the one who is suffering to help you and to minister to you, and that you affirm and express your appreciation for him. Don’t ask the person to do just anything you think needs to be done, but ask and express genuine appreciation for something for which he or she has been spiritually gifted by God to do. This prevents any sense of patronization or superiority (which Job’s friends had in abundance) and emphasizes the mutuality of the Christian life—the interdependence of the body of Christ—both to the one who suffers and to you. It also helps the one who is suffering to realize God is there with him as others benefit and are helped by his spiritual gifts. Appreciation for someone’s character also helps immensely because the grinding nature of suffering can have the effect of making you feel very unloved and worthless as a person and as a Christian.

A few months ago a friend of mine sent me a note with a check to help with our expenses. She wrote,

I hope you know what a great inspiration you have been and continue to be in my life. The Lord has used you mightily to demonstrate to me what faith and perseverance looks like in the flesh.

That meant so much to me. That’s encouragement to go on when I’m weary—the mutual love and help Christians are meant to give to each other and to be for each other.

Beyond survival issues, seek ways to provide a respite. Last summer my friend took me on a vacation—and that’s a kindness and act of love I will always remember and cherish.

Prayer: You may be asking why prayer wasn’t listed first. I’ve discussed prayer briefly, but I listed the others first because you need to make sure you’re doing the other things as well as praying. All too often people say they will pray, and think that is the extent of the ministry of which they are capable or that is needed. Prayer is needed—very much so—and I am not implying it is not nor am I ungrateful for the prayers of others—I am. Sometimes prayer may be all you have to offer, and that’s fine. I’m listing it now to emphasize that prayer should not become today’s equivalent of be warmed and be filled. It sounds spiritual, and saying it may leave you feeling good, while the person who suffers still cries alone.

Telling people you are praying for them is helpful, but those words quickly become remote and impersonal to the person who hears them if that’s all that is ever done. Those words can underscore the feeling of those who suffer that God has become remote and impersonal, without any benevolent, loving concern or compassion for their pain. I am very appreciative of prayers for my family and me, and I have certainly needed them, but too often I have cried alone.

So pray, pray hard. Call on God to answer and help. But know that part of God’s answer to prayer may be you doing for the one who hurts.

Persevere: In love persevere. Because you love the Lord Jesus, love your brother and sister in Christ, and persevere.

My husband showed me a Wall Street Journal article on expressing sympathy to a person who is grieving. The author, Elizabeth Bernstein, quoted someone who stated, “…we often avoid people who are vulnerable or in need because we feel uncomfortable with their emotions.”⁵ For Christians, love should drive us on to face our discomfort and have the courage to withstand the storm of feelings of those in need. It’s only by entering their valley and getting to know them that you will actually be able to know what someone needs: a cup of coffee, a movie or a time of tears mingled with laughter and comfort.

Seeing Job’s despair helps us understand how our perspective and understanding of God becomes distorted in our own affliction. We know Job’s backstory—we don’t know our own. We know there was a backstory to Job’s terrible afflictions; we can be assured there is a backstory to ours, but being left alone in suffering makes the battle of faith to trust God for that backstory excruciating. Job tells of his abandonment by relatives and friends and being despised by all whom he knows. In his anguish he cries out:

“Pity me, pity me, O you my friends,
For the hand of God has struck me.
Why do you persecute me as God does,
And are not satisfied with my flesh?”
Job 19:21–22

His appeal to them is heart-rending. He has been rebuked and lectured without consolation or mercy from his friends, and the solitude of his suffering was breaking Job. E. S. P. Heavenor writes:

The tragic relationship between Job and his friends appears in a clear light. Surely, says Job, the realization that the hand of God is afflicting him ought to move them to pity. Yet it was for that very reason that they could not pity him. Their inflexible creed would not allow them to do so….Job’s complaint against his friends [in v. 22] was that they were too godlike. In their attitude to his suffering, which was gradually becoming more unsympathetic, he imagined he saw a reflection of the attitude of God who seemed so callous about the weight of sorrow with which He was crushing him down to despair.⁶

A daughter of friends who recently went through surgery wrote:

…community is the friend of comfort.

Community is the friend of comfort. Sometimes we find others who have been in the community of suffering, but sometimes we need those who have not been through deep suffering to love us enough to enter ours. While pious words present a façade of spirituality, there is no comfort there for pain. Perhaps we could say lack of community is the ally of pain.

The New Testament depicts our lives as Christians living together through affliction and suffering. In Romans 12:15, Paul said to weep with those who weep. In Paul’s opening words in 2 Corinthians, he wrote about the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort who had comforted him, so that he in turn would be able to comfort the afflicted with the comfort he had received from God. Those who suffer need prayer that God will console them with His Holy Spirit, and they need consolation from their brothers and sisters in Christ. There may be truths that need to be spoken, but they need to be applied and reassured with love, comfort and understanding.

I realize I’ve quoted Paul’s words to weep with those who weep, three times—this makes the fourth! This wasn’t by design; this was an unplanned emphasis that came from my mind and my heart, and I think happened because what I’ve needed most in my times of suffering has been a friend—a friend who would stick closer than a brother.

We do fail each other, but we should not take refuge in that as an excuse. It is, instead, something of which to repent. In his commentary on Matthew, R. E. Nixon wrote, “Deeds must be the test of words and the true indication of character.”⁷ Christians should not be nonchalant about their lack of love. Never forget the commandment Jesus gave the night before He was crucified.

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
John 13:34-35

“This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends if you do what I command you.”
John 15:12-14

If this is the command of the Lord Jesus, then why do we treat it so lightly?

Part of the U.S. Rangers’ creed is, “I will never leave a fallen comrade behind to fall into the hands of the enemy.” I see that in Paul as he writes and instructs and encourages and exhorts and pours out his life into other believers from a heart full of love for Christ and for His people. Not only Paul, but did you know that all the authors of New Testament letters exhort and command Christians to love? Here are some examples: James 2:8–9, 14–17; 1 Peter 1:22; 1 John 3:16–18; and Hebrews 6:10, 13:1–3. The New Testament gives a portrait of Christians going through affliction together, and instructs and commands us on the rescue and recovery operations God has called his children to do for each other. We can’t leave one another to fall into the hands of the enemy.

The providence of God at many times is inscrutable to us. We are called to trust Him and persevere—but at the same time in His compassion He knows we hurt. As God works out His sovereign will there are many things going on that only He understands and that we cannot grasp. In this life we walk in eternity and in the temporal. We are to be companions with each other, and through the love we show for one another we provide a flesh and blood witness to His goodness even when our circumstances would tell us otherwise and tempt us to doubt Him.

God is sovereign, and God is good. God is there, and God loves you. In those times we do not understand His ways, we need each other to affirm who He is when doubt enters. The world becomes increasingly impersonal; become a part of someone’s life and invite that person to become a part of your life. Do not stand above and throw words into someone’s valley; we are all at level ground, and we all need each other. In love persevere. Your perseverance in love helps your friend to persevere in trusting God.

For the despairing man there should be kindness from his friend;
Lest he forsake the fear of the Almighty.
Job 6:14

_________________________
*This translation of 1 Peter 1:22b is by Edmund Clowney, The Message of 1 Peter, 1988, p. 74.
Slide Trumpet: Public Domain.

“The Mark of a Christian”
¹Francis Schaeffer, The Mark of a Christian.
Ichthus (the ΙΧΘΥΣ) Wheel in Ephesus: public domain via Wikipedia. The wheel is an overlay of the uppercase letters, ΙΧΘΥΣ. The fish has been a Christian symbol since the early years of the church. The Greek word for fish is an acrostic; each letter is the first letter of one of the five words of the phrase: Jesus Christ, God’s Son, Savior. ͑Ιησοῦς Χριστός Θεοῦ ͑Υιός Σωτήρ.
²Edmund Clowney, The Message of 1 Peter, 1988, pp. 74–75.

Organizing Love
Walter Langley, “Never Morning Wore To Evening But Some Heart Did Break” Public Domain
Lisa is younger than I am; I chose the painting for its pathos.

Blessings
Barmhartige Samaritaan by Han Wezelaar (The Good Samaritan): Gouwenaar, Public Domain.
Os Guinness, Doubt (Lion Publishing plc, England: 1976, Third ed. 1987) 199, 200, 201, 202, 206.
John Bunyan, Pilgrim’s Progress, The Seventh Stage. I was reminded of this section because Os Guinness quotes from it in Doubt.
Doubt was revised and republished twenty years later as God in the Dark. I own both books. I haven’t yet read the second, and I don’t know if all the original ideas were incorporated into it, but the first book is longer and six chapters have been omitted in the later publication, including four under the section titled, “Resolving Doubt.” I once found a stack of Doubt in a bookstore for about 5o¢ each. I bought at least a half-dozen, gave some away and kept two. One I loan out, and one I keep! I did this because I think I am now using my third copy of Francis Schaeffer’s True Spirituality! Some books you want to loan, but you never want to lose!

Heartbreak
RayNata, Miedo ajeno: Public Domain
¹W. E. Vine, Old Testament edited by F. F. Bruce, Vine’s Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words (1981) Vol. 3, p. 255.
²Blue Letter Bible. “Dictionary and Word Search for proslambanō (Strong’s 4355)”. Blue Letter Bible.
1996-2010. 20 Oct 2010. (Expand Thayer’s Lexicon).
Safety Net: Susan E. Hendrich

Shadow People
People Shadow, Purityofspirit: Public Domain.
“Never Morning Wore To Evening But Some Heart Did Break”, Walter Langley: Public Domain
Barmhartige Samaritaan (The Good Samaritan), Han Wezelaar: Gouwenaar, Public Domain.

Suffering & Lovingkindness
Job and his friends, Ilya Yefimovich Repin: Public Domain.
Small Candle: ChristianPhotos.net – Free High Resolution Photos for Christian Publications
Depression-loss of loved one: I can no longer find the source, but I believe this is in the Public Domain.
The Pilgrim’s Progress: The Owner of the Castle Was Giant Despair, John Liston Byam Shaw: Public Domain.
Betende Hände, Albrecht Dürer: Public Domain.
The Pilgrim’s Progress: Emmanuel’s Land Window at Emmanuel Church in the City of Boston: ElizaJR, Public Domain.
¹R. Laird Harris, Gleason L. Archer, Jr., Bruce K. Waltke, eds., Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (Moody Press: Chicago: 1980) vol. 1, 307.
^{2, 3}David J. Atkinson, The Message of Job, (Inter-Varsity Press, Downers Grove IL: 1991) 31, 30–31.
⁴Peter Bregman, “The Right Way to Respond to Failure,” HBR Blog Network, Harvard Business Review, March 10, 2011.
⁵Elizabeth Bernstein, “When a Friend Grieves, How to Get Sympathy Right,” The Wall Street Journal, January 25, 2011.
⁶E. S. P. Heavenor, “Job,” The New Bible Commentary: Revised, D. Guthrie, J. A. Motyer, eds.,
A. M. Stibbs, D. J. Wiseman, contributing eds., (Inter-Varsity Press, Downers Grove IL: 1970) 432.
⁷R. E. Nixon, “Matthew,” The New Bible Commentary: Revised, third ed., D. Guthrie, J. A. Motyer, eds., A. M. Stibbs, D. J. Wiseman, contributing eds. (Inter-Varsity Press, London 1970) 826.

Original content: Copyright ©2010–2012 Iwana Carpenter