Does your desire for correction outweigh your compassion? Does your passion for right belief overpower your ability to simply be present with someone who is in pain and just needs to be listened to?
These are sobering questions.
A couple of weeks ago, the weight of them really hit me as I listened to one of my closest friends describe the anguish he felt, yet again, as he shared one of the most painful and traumatic experiences of his life with another person, only to be met with a quick and sharp critique of his underlying theology, rather than a compassionate and gentle ear that understood his need simply to be heard.
This is all too common.
As he shared this encounter, I recalled how many times in the past I’ve also experienced the pain of sharing vulnerably, but instead of being listened to, the other person rushed to correct some part of what I said instead of tending to my wound.
On the other hand, I also realized how many times I was the friend who critiqued, even accused the person I was “listening” to, eagerly awaiting an opportunity to interject correction, instead of discerning whether that was the time for correction, or if I simply needed to sit and be present with the person in pain.
I think this is a typical “churched” person response—and a response, sadly, that I think the world has often come to expect from Christians.
James writes, “My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires” (James 1:19-20, NIV [italics added]).
When we do the opposite of this and are slow to listen and quick to speak, for some reason, our sense of rightness seems to become more easily offended and inflamed. Then we seek to correct, not because that will necessarily be most helpful, but because our tendency to fixate on ourselves will cause us to prioritize what we want to share—our own knowledge—rather than focus on the actual person in need.
We see this mentality displayed in the Pharisees who were more concerned with doing work on the sabbath than healing the sick and aiding those in need.
I once heard Bill Johnson say something along these lines in one of his sermons: “The righteous will try to prove their zeal for rightness by showing how [adamantly] opposed to sin they are.” That’s profound. And, in conversations like the one my friend was in, I think that’s exactly what we do.
It’s probably unlikely that any of us do this because we have been taught explicitly to listen poorly as soon as we hear someone’s painful story underpinned by theological error in their perspective. I anticipate that this issue is the result of something “caught, not taught”; i.e., something we observe in other people’s behavior and then put into practice ourselves, often subconsciously.
Context is important here too. I’m not saying that correction is unimportant, or that it doesn’t have a place in the Christian life. I’m also not saying that we should openly embrace the potentially heretical things we might hear for the sake of being nice, whether we are conversing with an individual or a group of people. But listening to a teacher spew poor doctrine or theology and listening to someone who might have broken understanding as a result of the very experience they are sharing is a far cry from being one and the same.
And listening poorly, even if unintentional, is ultimately an act of selfishness disguised as good intention and advice. In other words, the principle of the matter becomes more important for us to uphold than carrying the weight of the person’s pain with them. (See Galatians 6:2 regarding “bear[ing] one another’s burdens.”)
Paul makes this bold and humbling declaration in Philippians 2:1-4:
Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of others.
The model of Jesus’s life shows something so contrary to what we often do.
Over and over in the Gospels, before we hear him utter the words “repent” and “go and sin no more” (or in conjunction with them), we see him engaging with people in such a way that their pain, trauma, sin, and brokenness is not dismissed, diminished, sprinted past, or ignored: Christ was present with them, and He listened. He recognized their humanity, the very parts of their being that were in need of His saving grace.
Jesus wasn’t uncomfortable with pain.
Apart from his own physical, emotional, and spiritual suffering, Jesus was well acquainted with grief and hurt. In John 11 when He sees Mary, the sister of Lazarus and others weeping, the text says “he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled.” Then, even knowing that He would soon raise Lazarus to life, “Jesus wept” (v. 35).
He cried with and comforted those who were grieving.
With the woman at the well In John 4, before Jesus speaks to her about the 5 husbands she had had and the man she was unmarried to but currently living with, He offers to her His gift of living water that only He could provide.
With the woman caught in adultery in John 8 (which is a disputed text, I know), Jesus comes to her rescue, saves her from being stoned, and then commissions her to “…leave [her] life of sin” (John 8:11, NIV).
In Christ’s encounter with Zacchaeus, a chief tax collector in Luke 19, Jesus asks to come to the man’s home, an engagement of deep intimacy in Jewish culture. This was a man the people scoffed at as Jesus made this request of him, saying, “He [Jesus] has gone to be the guest of a sinner” (v. 7).
On the flip side, we also know that Jesus didn’t turn away from conflict: He regularly chastised the Pharisees, admonished His disciples, and corrected others that He encountered in His journey. He brought the truth. He was and is the Truth. So the point isn’t that Jesus didn’t address sin or wrong belief; that was one of His chief purposes. He simply chose the right time and opportunity for correction, and so should we.
We even see this displayed in the story of Job.
In chapter one of the Book of Job, a story filled with some of the most pain, anguish, and trauma imaginable, when Job’s friends come to him in the midst of all his agony, before they enter into their famous dialogue with him about sin and righteousness (and remember God Himself refers to Job as “blameless and upright” at the beginning of the story in v. 9), before uttering a single word, they sit with him for seven days and and seven nights “because they saw how great his suffering was” (v. 13).
Even Job’s friends didn’t rush their words; even they sat with their friend in pain and “mourned with those who mourn” (Romans 12:15).
Conclusion
A major part of what underlies this problem is that we are simply uncomfortable with pain. Human beings struggle so much with feeling that the value they add to a person’s life comes through what they can say, especially to those who are hurting. But the truth is, there is often so much more to be said for how we sit with those who are hurting than what we say to them.
The hard thing for us, too, is that sometimes our critique isn’t wrong, it’s just poorly timed.
In its healthy expressions, our inclination to correct—to want to help—isn’t a bad thing at all, but our timing is often premature. We know that the “the wounds of a friend can be trusted” (Proverbs 27:6), but the time for such correction should always be Spirit-led. If we are to account for and allow for the right time, we must be a people with a long-term perspective: we must “be about the journey” which enables us to see beyond the present moment.
So the next time you are sitting with someone who is sharing a painful story, with someone who is hurting and vulnerable, don’t allow your desire for correction to outweigh your compassion. Sit the with broken, as Jesus did, and bring correction as the Holy Spirit leads—in His time, not ours.
References:
Holy Bible: New International Version. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011.
