Category Archives: Encouragement

Yes, I Do Want Your Pity

Pity is underrated.

This is especially true when you have a friend going through a difficulty and you know all the answers to the questions they aren’t asking.

I just finished reading through the book of Job, which has become one of my favorite Old Testament books. (I’ve written a couple of previous posts about Job’s confusion and endurance.) While reading, I noticed again Job’s plea for pity from his friends.

You remember the story. Job lost everything—including his wealth and livelihood, his children, and his health. His friends came to comfort him, but rather than speaking words of consolation, they spoke words of condemnation, suggesting from a variety of angles that surely he was at fault for all that had befallen him and that if he would just confess the hidden sin they assumed he harbored, all would again be well.

But Job didn’t see it that way. He knew that while he wasn’t perfect, he had no hidden sin. As the conversations between the four men continued, Job often turned his words from addressing their accusations to simply crying out in anguish for relief and understanding from God. And multiple times, he asked for relief from his friends’ condemning words.

On one of these occasions, Job pled with his friends for pity: “To him that is afflicted pity should be shewed from his friend” (6:14).

Pity. Job just wanted his friends’ pity.

Job isn’t the only one in the Bible who longed for pity. Psalm 69:20 tells us that David wanted it as well: “Reproach hath broken my heart; and I am full of heaviness: and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none.”

What is remarkable about Psalm 69 is that it is a messianic psalm specifically pointing to Christ on the cross. Of this passage, Matthew Henry wrote, “David penned this psalm when he was in affliction, and…the predictions were fulfilled in Jesus Christ.”

Read the verse again, and let this reality sink in: Jesus wanted pity. In His darkest hour, He longed for human pity and comfort.

Reproach hath broken my heart; and I am full of heaviness: and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none.—Psalm 69:20

Sometimes we contrast pity and compassion, dismissing pity as a mere empty feeling. But what if true compassion requires pity?

What if there are times when, like Job’s friends, we don’t see the situation as clearly as we think we do? And what if we don’t have as applicable answers as we believe? What if, in some instances, pity is the best vehicle for giving comfort?

There are two perspectives from which this truth is needful to grasp—when you are the person who needs to give pity and when you are the person who needs pity.

When you can’t “fix it,” you can still give pity.

I think those of us who know that God’s Word holds all the answers for life sometimes forget that we aren’t personally responsible or able to fix everyone’s pain. Sometimes, as in Job’s case, God allows suffering to continue for reasons known only to Him. Sometimes, like Job’s friends, we are too quick to assume what we don’t know and too impatient to listen when visible change doesn’t immediately take place.

But when we can’t “fix it” for our friends, we can still care. We can empathize. We can be okay with not being the hero and just be the encourager, affirming God’s compassion and care as we walk alongside one who is suffering.

Much of the book of Job is a record of the dialogue between him and his three friends. For chapter after chapter, the pattern is predictable. He speaks; they accuse.

But have you ever considered how Job’s suffering would have been made more bearable had his friends encouraged him? What if they had said, “We don’t understand either, but we trust God with you”?

When you need pity, God gives it.

I first noticed the messianic prophecy, “I looked for some to take pity,” during my Bible reading one morning years ago. It came on the heels of a difficult realization that a friend who had tried to fix something in my life which she didn’t understand had given up on caring as well. As I read these words describing Jesus’ experience, I understood in a more profound way than ever before, that He cares.

Jesus understands the need for sympathy. To once again quote Matthew Henry on Psalm 69, “We cannot expect too little from men (miserable comforters are they all); nor can we expect too much from God, for he is the Father of mercy and the God of all comfort and consolation.” (Incidentally, Henry’s parenthetical thought there is a reference to our friend Job: “I have heard many such things: miserable comforters are ye all,” 16:2.)

Even in Job’s case, as poor, miserable Job believed he was cut off from God and was pleading with his friends to just show pity, God Himself was looking on Job with great pity and tender mercy: “Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy” (James 5:11).

Pity is a gift.

Whether you are a frustrated friend who can’t seem to get her message of help across to one who is suffering or you are the anguished sufferer, remember that pity is a gift. There are times we need to give it, and there are times we need to receive it.

There are unexplainable griefs in this life. Sometimes God allows His own to shoulder burdens that don’t go away in a single conversation…or decade. Sometimes we do well to listen and care and walk with our friends to the throne of grace again and again—not in a short-lived quest for the perfect solution, but in assurance (and giving reassurance) of “mercy, and…grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16).

And then, when we pour out our heart and pain before someone from we hope to receive the gift of pity, and they don’t know how to—or just don’t—give it, we do well to remember that God empathizes with us.

The God who pitied Job is the same who Himself felt the loneliness of suffering without comfort. He is “touched with the feeling of our infirmities” (Hebrews 4:15), and He invites you to cast all your cares on Him, “for he careth for you” (1 Peter 5:7).

202 Ideas and a Postcard

There are reasons I don’t write blog posts nearly as often as I intend to. And none of them include a lack of ideas. Well, at least not a lack of rough, seed thoughts.

As blog post ideas come to mind, they immediately go into my “post ideas” notebook in Evernote, which currently has 202 rough ideas to come back to later. And just for good measure, I have a dozen or so of these posts half-started in my writing program Scrivener.

So why don’t I post more often?

I tell myself it’s because I don’t have time. Or energy when I do have time. Or that the raw ideas weren’t as good as they seemed the moment they came to me. Sometimes I even write a rough draft and find it wasn’t as interesting or helpful as I thought it would be and never come back to it, despite my intentions otherwise. Many days I have “write blog post” on my to-do list, but it’s just never a high enough priority to end the day with a check next to it.

But today—when I didn’t even have “write blog post” on my list—I experienced something so unexpected that I couldn’t not write.  Continue reading

When Courage Doesn’t Roar

Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says, “I’ll try again tomorrow.”—Mary Anne Radmacher

That quote was meaningful enough to me the first time I read it that I still remember where I sat and the time of day.

I saved it immediately, and I’ve used it in teaching since. Whenever I share it in a lesson, I see pens and paper connect as many others want to save it, too. It’s worded with such concise beauty that we easily identify with it.

But there is something about this quote’s appeal that has always troubled me a little. It’s not that the quote is inaccurate, but that it is incomplete. Continue reading

When You Never Experience Infinite…

Almost three months after I moved to Southern California, I innocently asked a co-worker, who was a SoCal native, where would be the best spot to visit the ocean. “I have a couple days free, and I’ve been wanting to see the ocean. Where should I go?”

“You mean, you’ve never seen the ocean? Like, you don’t mean just not here in L.A., but no ocean anywhere?”

“I’m from Illinois. We don’t have the ocean there.”

“You’ve never seen the ocean? Never?

Whatever, I thought to myself. It’s not like I’ve never seen anything that is memorable. I mean, look, she’s never seen unending acres of corn!

That was on Tuesday. Continue reading

A Word of Encouragement on Your New Year’s Bible Reading Goal

So, somewhere around December 31 or January 1, you renewed your resolve to read God’s Word daily. Or maybe you set a goal to complete a new study plan or stick with a specific reading schedule.

You pictured yourself with a steaming cup of coffee, a new journal with freshly-filled pages, and the first hints of sunrise streaming in your window onto your open Bible lighting your already glowing face.

This, you decided, will be the year I really read all the way through. Or, This will be the year I study XYZ topic.

Then January 2nd happened.

Or maybe it was January 10th. In any case, you overslept, couldn’t find your journal under the mess you had meant to clean up the night before, and didn’t feel much like reading anyway. Continue reading

Why You Should Not Compare Your Story to Someone Else’s Quote

There’s something about seeing David Brainerd quotes posted online that makes me smile. Not a discrediting smile (I love his quotes!), but a sympathetic smile.

Brainerd’s journals have moved me profoundly. In fact, The Life and Diary of David Brainerd is the only autobiography I remember setting down mid-reading—not just once or twice, but almost every time I pick it up—moved to fervent prayer. His heart for God freely (and rawly) expressed in those pages, which he believed no one would read as he penned them, is that real and that convicting.

I smile, however, when I see his quotes because his journal was often so contradictory. Like some of us, he encountered extreme highs and lows. But the posted quotes rarely even hint of the contradictions Brainerd lived with.

Take for instance, this quote: Continue reading

4 Gifts You Lose When You’re Stressed Out

A week ago today, I did something I should do more often—turned notifications off on my phone, drove to an area with no cell reception, hiked to the bottom of a canyon, and sat for two and a half hours with a good book.

For the first fifteen to thirty minutes of reading, I surprised myself at how often I reached to check my phone, even though my notifications were turned off and I didn’t even have cell service. Definitely not a habit I’m proud of.

About thirty minutes in, I was reaching for my phone for a different reason—to take pictures to share online.

Finally, as the connection-detox ran its course, I let my phone sit unnoticed on the rock beside me as I simply sat and absorbed my surroundings. I didn’t post any pictures that day, but I did leave wonderfully renewed and less stressed than I had let myself be for quite some time.

The next day, while sitting at my desk at work, it occurred to me that stress steals from us some of God’s most valuable gifts—gifts I had hardly noticed were absent forty-eight hours prior, but realized now what a treasure they are. I jotted four down. Continue reading

Attempting Your Impossible

mountain-climbing

I grew up reading about people who did truly great things for God. Built orphanages by faith. Rescued children from the jaws of torture and death. Cut through jungles and defied wild animals to carry the gospel to more villages.

I always thought maybe I would do something kind of like that. Something great.

I remember hearing sermons about living for a cause greater than yourself and attempting something so great that unless God was in it, it would fail.

I thought I’d like to do something like that. Something so great that it was actually impossible. Continue reading

6 Gifts God Gives in the Wilderness

desertscape

Sometimes I imagine a conversation between an Israelite woman and a foreign guest in the Promised Land. The Israelite woman (whom we’ll call Sarah) was among those who spent four decades in the wilderness, and her new companion (we’ll call her Fatima) has recently trekked the same territory. They are eager to swap stories and compare experiences:

Sarah: Remember the sandstorms?

Fatima: Yeah, there’s nothing like being sand-blasted by hot, wind-driven sand. We had some days we couldn’t journey at all until the wind died down.

Sarah: Exactly. We had to watch for when the cloud or the pillar of fire moved from over the tabernacle.

Fatima: What? (She gives a suspicious glance and wonders if Sarah is okay.) We didn’t have a tabernacle. And we definitely didn’t have pillar of fire with us.

Sarah: That’s too bad. I mean, there were days I wanted to go forward when we couldn’t and days I wanted to stay when we had to move, but all in all, I was thankful for God’s presence with us.

Fatima: And you say this…this presence was in a pillar of fire? Continue reading

13 Ways to Break Out of Self Focus (When Your Whole Life Is Already Built around Serving Others)

ocean

Perhaps you’ve heard that one of the best ways to overcome an inward focus (and the discouragement and depression that it can bring) is to serve others.

This is good advice. But what if your entire life is already built around serving others?

Let’s say that you’re a mother or a teacher or a caregiver or you serve in ministry…and practically everything you do is already either serving someone else or structured around the times and ways you serve.

And let’s say you’re finding yourself overwhelmed, and your emotions are turning in on you.

How is adding one more act of service supposed to feel like anything less than an extra burden? How is baking cookies for your neighbor, for instance, going to feel like anything other than one more thing to do for one more person?

And if baking cookies won’t help, what can you do to break out that self focus?

Here are thirteen ideas: Continue reading