What Suffering People Need Most

Articles

May 24

In the last post, I walked a bit through the book of Lamentations and made one point: suffering is never simplistic. I ended that post by saying the first step to counseling suffering people is to give them what they most need.

Now I pose the question to you: what do suffering people most need?

Think back to a time you were suffering significantly. Maybe it was a loved one dying, or a relationship gone wrong, or drama within your church or fellowship. For me, it was when people I trusted were becoming my greatest enemies. Things I had called facts for years were crumbling underneath my feet. Battle lines were being drawn, and I was being pulled to both sides. I felt like I had no one to seek for counsel, no hope of the situation improving, and not a friend in the world I could trust. Yes, I prayed, but it seemed like God didn’t answer. To survive, I built a wall of steel around my heart. Nothing got out; no one got in. It was the loneliest time of my life. Psalm 94 became my prayer:

O Lord, God of vengeance, O God of vengeance, shine forth! Rise up, O judge of the earth; repay to the proud what they deserve! O Lord, how long shall the wicked, how long shall the wicked exult?

But what was it for you? When your suffering blocked out the sun, when you didn’t even know what to pray, when your world was one of confusion, fear, chaos, what was it like? I don’t know your deepest sufferings, but I do know your prayer:

Where are you God? Don’t You see? Don’t You care?

In those moments, when your fiancé dies, when your cousin commits suicide, when you’re diagnosed with cancer, when no one understands you, when your entire country has been ravaged and bodies are strewn in the streets and the temple of God is no more, what do we need the most? Someone to throw a truth grenade at us? To ‘just let go and let God’? To believe that ‘Everything happens for a reason’?

That’s not enough for me. A Band-Aid just won’t do. So we’re back at our question: “What does a suffering person need most?”

Joni Eareckson Tada has been a quadriplegic (paralyzed from the shoulders down) for over 50 years. Through those years, she has struggled with bitterness against God, depression, suicidal thoughts, chronic pain, and breast cancer. She’s most well-known for her foundation “Joni and Friends,” a ministry for disabled persons.

I want to quote her answer to “What do suffering people most need?”

When [we] are sorely suffering…[we] are like hurting children looking up into the faces of their parents, crying and asking, "Daddy, why?” Those children don't want explanations, answers, or “reasons why”; they want their daddy to pick them up, pat them on the backs, and reassure them that everything is going to be okay.

Our heartfelt plea is for assurance-Fatherly assurance-that there is an order to reality that far transcends our problems, that somehow everything will be okay. We amble on along our philosophical path, then—Bam!—get hit with suffering. …Suffering has not only rocked the boat, it's capsized it.

We need assurance that the world is not splitting apart at the seams. We need to know we aren't going to fizzle into a zillion atomic particles and go spinning off in space. We need to be reassured that the world, the universe, is not in nightmarish chaos, but orderly and stable.

God must be at the center of things. He must be in the center of our suffering.

What's more, he must be Daddy. Personal and compassionate. …

God, like a father, doesn't just give advice. He gives himself. [1]

What do we need? Not pithy promises, but fatherly assurance. Not just advice, but God Himself—personal, compassionate, Father, Daddy. And this is exactly what we find Jeremiah saying in Lamentations 3:19–24.

Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall! My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me. But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.”

“The Lord is my portion—my inheritance, my lot, my only possession—therefore, I will have hope in Him.” What does a suffering saint need most? God! We need God! When our world is falling apart, when we have forgotten what happiness is, when our hope has perished, when our life is bitter, we need God! We need to know that He is with us, that He loves us with a steadfast, unfailing love, that His mercy is absolutely guaranteed in the morning, that His grace overwhelms even our most desperate of circumstances, that He is faithful to us, faithful to His promises, faithful to the end.

Even if we have nothing and no one else, we have Him! He is my portion, that is my inheritance, my only possession, says my soul. Therefore, I will hope, not in better circumstances, not in deliverance from pain, not in the end of suffering, but in Him. No one else, nothing less, will do.

This truth is the foundation of the psalmist’s cries to the Lord. Yes, they plead for deliverance. Yes, they appeal to theological truth. But above all, they appeal to the God of the Word.

Psalm 7
1 O Lord my God, in you do I take refuge;
save me from all my pursuers and deliver me,

Psalm 16
1 Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge.
2 I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord;
I have no good apart from you.”
[…]
5 The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup;
you hold my lot.

Psalm 18
1 I love you, O Lord, my strength.
2 The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer,
my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge,
my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.
3 I call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised,
and I am saved from my enemies.

Psalm 27
1 The Lord is my light and my salvation;
whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life;
of whom shall I be afraid?
2 When evildoers assail me
to eat up my flesh,
my adversaries and foes,
it is they who stumble and fall.

Psalm 28
1 To you, O Lord, I call;
my rock, be not deaf to me,
lest, if you be silent to me,
I become like those who go down to the pit.
2 Hear the voice of my pleas for mercy,
when I cry to you for help,
when I lift up my hands
toward your most holy sanctuary.
[…]
7 The Lord is my strength and my shield;
in him my heart trusts, and I am helped;
my heart exults,
and with my song I give thanks to him.

Psalm 31
1 In you, O Lord, do I take refuge;
let me never be put to shame;
in your righteousness deliver me!
2 Incline your ear to me;
rescue me speedily!
Be a rock of refuge for me,
a strong fortress to save me!
3 For you are my rock and my fortress;
and for your name’s sake you lead me and guide me;
4 you take me out of the net they have hidden for me,
for you are my refuge.
5 Into your hand I commit my spirit;
you have redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God.

Psalm 39
7 “And now, O Lord, for what do I wait?
My hope is in you.

Psalm 42
1 As a deer pants for flowing streams,
so pants my soul for you, O God.
2 My soul thirsts for God,
for the living God.
When shall I come and appear before God?
3 My tears have been my food
day and night,
while they say to me all the day long,
“Where is your God?”

Psalm 63
1 O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you;
my soul thirsts for you;
my flesh faints for you,
as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
2 So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary,
beholding your power and glory.
3 Because your steadfast love is better than life,
my lips will praise you.
4 So I will bless you as long as I live;
in your name I will lift up my hands.

“God is my Father, my refuge, my strength. He is the fount of every blessing, apart from whom I have no good. He is my portion, my cup, my lot, my inheritance. God is my rock, my fortress, my deliverer, my shield, my stronghold, my horn of salvation, my light, my hope, and my salvation.” This is the language that the psalmists use to describe God; is it any wonder, then, that they cry out for Him? That they pant, faint, thirst, yearn for God to come near, to deliver them out of their affliction? This is the testimony of the Old Testament saints; He is their greatest need.

But in the new covenant, suffering saints have more particular language: we need to know God as our heavenly Father, Abba, Daddy. We need to know that He is our inheritance forever. We need Him with us.

The good news is that He has not held Himself aloof. He has given us Himself, in the person and work of Jesus Christ—our Suffering Savior. And Lord-willing, I’ll write about that in the next post.