The Silent Sufferer

Hello and welcome to Become a Competent Biblical Counselor. My name is Dr. Dave Jones, and today's episode is entitled Silent Sufferers. And the scripture I want to use today is found in Acts 1532, where we read that they encouraged and strengthened the brothers by many things that they said. So this is a very interesting episode today, and I'll be making reference to again Dr. J. Adams' book, Encouragement is not enough. And so let's go ahead and get started. So the lady's name was Lois. Lois was married to a firefighter. They had four children. And every time that her husband would walk out the door to go to the fire station, she would wonder is he going to have a catastrophic event that he's going to witness today? Is something going to happen that's never happened before? Is he going to be affected? And if so, how is he going to be affected? And if he's affected, how is it going to affect the family? And if he comes home with a catastrophic event that he witnessed, what am I supposed to say? What am I not supposed to say? She was always asking these questions, and how do I keep the children away from their father who might be not very excited to see them because of his daily experience? And then she quickly realized that he does many times give her a warning that if he did have something that happened that was disturbing, he would tell his wife, Just make sure the children are busy doing something else. I really don't want to have them experience and see what uh I may have gone through, and I don't want to be cold to them or mean to them, but I've got some things I need to straighten out in my mind. And she might want to say, Well, you want to talk about it? Well, no, he doesn't want to talk about it. So and besides, he has his own way of dealing with these issues. He would simply come in, change his clothes and take a long walk. Lois was a silent sufferer. Another example includes Bill and his wife Martha. They had an eleven-year-old little girl. Martha was diagnosed with breast cancer. And so for the period of often on seven and a half years, Martha would go through various chemo and radiation treatments to eradicate this fast moving cancer with that within her body. After one visit to the doctor, she came out of the doctor's office and the husband said, So how'd it go? And she says, Well, they said that they've done everything they can, and there's no different medicine that they could give me that they haven't already given to me, and there's really nothing more they can do. And they said that I might be able to last six weeks. So the realization began that here a young wife and mother was in the process of dying. Over the next few weeks, people were coming to visit the woman, giving condolences, encouragement, giving her hope. In the meantime, the husband and the 11-year-old little girl were standing in the corner of the room just wondering, what do we do now? The husband would think, I'm losing my wife, and the little girl would think I'm losing my mommy. They frequently to say to themselves, Well, what do we do now? The husband would think, I'm losing my wife. And the little girl would say, I'm losing my mommy. Well, what are we supposed to do? What are we not supposed to do? How are we supposed to act? And it seemed that everything was going fine for the mother, for the wife, and that she had so much support from her neighbors and her friends and and people that she's known for so long. Meanwhile, the husband and the daughter were silent sufferers. So, counselor, what do you do in a situation like this? Obviously, there's an opportunity if asked to counsel and provide counsel, biblical counsel to the people who are involved directly, those who are actually the identified silent sufferers that I've already made reference to. How do you add encouragement to them? Do you provide encouragement? And if so, how does it look? What does it sound like? How does it feel? And to whom are you specifically giving encouragement to? Do you offer different types of encouragement to each individual? Or is it one solution fits all? What does it look like? Everybody knows what encouragement is, don't they? Well, yes and no. Of course. We all have some general ideas that may roughly approximate various aspects of encouragement that no one knows about slapping poor despondent Larry on the back saying, Cheer up, old man, things can't be that bad. Indeed, for some that sort of thing may be the prime thought that comes to mind when they hear the word. If that's so for you, I'm afraid your view is solely deficient. Others envisioned themselves coming alongside Larry, as they put it, quoting a Bible verse or two, like the backslappers. They also mean well, but I'm afraid that being there for you is also inadequate. If nothing is done about the problem, in time the one who is there can become a nuisance. His presence may be well intentioned, but still fall short of genuine biblical encouragement and therefore be inadequate. Then there's a person who wants to tell you about his problems. If he pointed to how God brought him through, explaining the biblical ways and means, it might be helpful. But for him merely to recite facts about his difficulties and say things like See, I made it, so can you rarely helps. So what then is the region for encouragement? It is designed to push forward those who stand on the brink of performing a task that lies immediately in front of them. True encouragement then is encouraging another to make godly gains. Apart from that, encouragement yields no lasting spiritual fruit, and as in all things, the ultimate purpose of encouragement must be to honor God by encouraging people to make decisions and changes. So the lady who was married to the fireman, she had to realize that her husband had a plan, something that worked for him and how he was dealing with whatever circumstance he faced that day. And it was up to her to make changes, not to change him with how he was responding to these issues, but she needed to change her response and also educate and inform the children how they should in turn behave and act when their father was in these kind of challenging opportunities. But I think what's important to mention here is that if you have the opportunity to give comfort and encouragement to a silent sufferer, you must make sure that you plan what you're going to say and how you're going to behave and how you're going to act before doing so. You see, this encouragement ought not to be off the cuff. It should be planned. Mostly, there will be time for solid planning, time for you to think seriously about encouragement, and there will be times when encouragement must be given without much opportunity for careful extended thought. Yes, even then, many planning may and should be done. And obviously, the most important thing you can do in offering encouragement to silent sufferers at times like this is to be very careful in using encouraging words. When you analyze biblical encouragement, you will see that it focuses upon what is said to strengthen and urge believers to serve God faithfully. Encouraging words, therefore, are those that show believers how to handle such difficulties God's way so that they will become rooted and grounded in their faith and not blown away by every wind and doctrine. In other words, at times like these, the silent sufferers don't know what to do. They don't know what not to do. They don't know how to act. They don't know anything about what they're supposed to be doing. It's up to you with your planning and your encouraging to tell them what they need to do. And there's very important point to be made here. It's not all about sitting around and worrying and being inflexible with respect to what's going on. There has to be some action that takes place with the encouraging words. True encouragement always points toward the ability that God willingly grants. Faithful encouragement never urges believers to do anything in their own wisdom and strength. Rather, it directs them to turn to God because the one who commands is also the one who grants the ability to obey. In other words, this is the time for the silent sufferer to realize this is an opportunity to make changes. God is allowing this to happen in order for me to make some changes. I have to start thinking differently and I have to start acting differently in the way that I conduct my life. And that's going to be very difficult, but that's where you, the counselor, comes in to offer the encouragement to continue doing what God has given them the grace to apply. I had the opportunity to give the eulogy for a young firefighter who died in a surfing accident. Let me hasten to say right here that this firefighter was my younger brother. His name was John. John was the youngest of the four children in our family. We refer to him as the Rot of the Litter. John had his own world. John was blue-eyed, blonde, and had a world of his own. He was really into surfing. But his father also was a firefighter. And for some reason, John was always looking for some support and encouragement from his father, and felt he was not getting it. So John just developed his own world. He was going to be a surfer, and that's all he wanted to do was be a surfer. But reality set in and he realized he had to do something in order to make a living, so he went ahead and joined the fire department as well. So he was a firefighter, and when he wasn't a firefighter, he was a surfer. And Dad just couldn't understand how and why John was so involved with surfing. And many times Dad gave him a difficult time with that particular hobby. John stuck with his world. He was not going to stop doing what he loved to do to pacify Dad. So many years passed. John retired from the fire department, and at the age of 62 he was out surfing one day with his friends, and he had a heart attack on the surfboard and died immediately. So at the funeral I had an opportunity to share with all those in attendance John's background, the fact that John had a world of his own. He created his world. He made changes. He went from what Dad expected him to be to what he really wanted to be. And the point I wanted to make to the people in attendance was that if you wanted to change your world, if you didn't like your world, this is an opportunity for you to be a John. John changed his world. John lived his world. John died in his world. So the point I'm trying to make here with respect to silent sufferers, you can tell the silent sufferers this is an opportunity that God has given you to be a different kind of a person, to create a different kind of world. It's not necessarily the fact that the world that you have right now is sinful. The point is, this is an opportunity for God to use you in doing something with this experience that unfortunately you've had to go through, but have faith in God. And in so doing, make sure that you convey the information and the fact that you are always there too. And one last thought that's really kind of interesting to be sensitive to. Have a great day.