In the book of Job chapter one we read about how God allowed Satan to test Job by taking away his property and his children. In chapter two the harassment continues with Satan attacking Job’s health. The chapter ends with three of Job’s friends who, upon hearing of Job’s trials, come to visit him.
“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.” Job 2:13
This act of sitting on the ground was a common practice for Jews. And sitting for seven days represented the usual time of mourning for the dead. The art of sitting is one that I have come to learn over many years, and I admit that I’m still not very good at it.
An important lesson that I learned, of sitting with people in their struggle, happened in 2006 when I met a woman, who was in her mid-50’s. One day as she was in the kitchen she tripped over her small dog and broke her ankle. Prior to her accident she was a very healthy, active woman full of life. She went in the hospital to surgically repair her ankle, and she never came out until the day she died, which was about a year later.
During her hospital stay she ended up having one problem after another; blood clots, and aneurysms, and heart issues, and lung issues. When I first went to visit her, I was naively of the mindset that I needed to come and impart some words of wisdom to her as a way of encouraging her. At the time, she was still in fairly good health, but about 6 months later when I went to see her again, she had become this haggard old woman on the brink of death. And what I learned during
that last visit was that she didn’t need my words of wisdom, or more accurately my words of ignorance. What she most desired from me, and from others who came to visit her, was to just sit and be. She was the person who taught me the value of sitting.
To sit with someone means going from movement to a stationary place. A place where attention is given primarily by listening. And for a lot of us that’s hard. But we have to take the time to sit in order to care for others. Over the last few weeks I have had several people sit with me as I have contemplated a murder/suicide that happened to three of my friends in Texas. My friends presence as we have sat together and talked, and sometimes not said anything has been really good for me.
Sitting with people is especially good when you are trying to digest why things happen the way they do. Dennis Ritchie is a blogger that I read every once in a while, and he says,
“Sitting with someone in pain or grief requires the courage to go where there are no answers,
and the fortitude to stay there.”
Sitting with someone takes time, it takes energy. And often times we’re short on both aren’t we? But I would like to remind you that your role as a Christ follower is not to impart the Gospel through your words, as much as it is through your actions. And your time of sitting with people and journeying with them through the hard stuff is the most important thing that you and I can do as Christians.
When you and I sit and listen to people they feel loved and cared for and worthy of being heard. The Apostle Paul in writing to the Corinthian church says:
“And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.” I Corinthians 1:7
Just remember that Jobs friends were doing good until they began to talk. After that it was all downhill.