What has helped you in your troubles?

Take a random sample of Christians. Ask them a simple question: What was most helpful to you when you were going through trouble? This is what you will hear.

The #1 answer: people. People are the cause of most trouble; people are the salve for most trouble. A letter, a visit and then another visit, kind and understanding words, or a consistent presence: sitting next to you in church, dropping off a small gift, having a meal together, helping with chores around the house, reading to you, offering Scripture that was helpful to them in their trouble, downloading worship music for you. The list is endless. Love can be very creative in the way it comforts those who are hurting.
And please don’t think that the encouragement of others is merely a random act of kindness. All this mobilized love, of course, is from the Spirit who often gives gifts anonymously (Isaiah 45:1-5). The Suffering Servant has a soft spot for those who suffer. As a result, believers and unbelievers alike will usually find some comfort in the words and deeds of another person.

There is still more going on behind the scenes. We were created to be a people. The created intent of human beings was that we would move toward each other – not against and not away from. In this present era, in which selfishness and cruelty are still apparent, there are risks in moving toward other people, but we are guaranteed isolation and grief if we wall ourselves off. When we follow God’s created intent for us, life feels a bit more right and good. It feels more like home.

Notice the important implications of this. Grief can mistakenly believe that it wants to be alone. And, yes, there are some people who use that alone time well, but no one should stay there, no matter what grief tells you. When you are suffering, the last thing you might want to do is move toward other people such as a small group, a Sunday service, or an open invitation to someone’s home, but that is exactly when you should do it. A couple went through the loss of a child. The wife moved toward other people, including her husband. The husband isolated himself. The wife had it right, and it was only her hard and fast commitment to him that kept the marriage together. When suffering hits home and one spouse moves away from the other, the consequences to the relationship can be severe.

With this #1 answer in view, the escapist traditions stand out as being much more deleterious and doomed to fail. If, during hardships, you avoid people and move toward things and activities, you only intensify the pain, in which case you turn even more frequently to your preferred source of pseudo-comfort. Drugs and alcohol have been the most common and destructive of the away-from-people traditions, but there are many others: video games, pornography, spending money, and eating. Foolishness that isolates can also be very creative. Move toward people. Move toward. Don’t move away. Don’t simply wait. Move toward.

Ed welch