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2 Friendship Killers: Part One - Failure to Weep

I think most of us want friends. We want enjoyable people to do life with. Someone to laugh with. Someone to adventure with. We want people to bond with, and share the ups and downs of life with. We want someone who will stick with us through thick and thin. But as we face the complexities of life and relationships, we can find that friendship is fragile and will break easily.

Romans 12: 9-21 in particular teaches Christians how to love one another and how to love those in the world. It teaches us how to befriend one another (Let love be genuine...) and how to navigate the messy nature of relationships (bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse). Because they do get messy.

There are many things that can harm or even kill friendship. In fact, just from this passage, I could identify many things, such as changing priorities, impatience, betrayal, hatred, selfishness, and on and on. However, I want to look at just two, those found in Romans 12:15:

"Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep."

DISCOMFORT WITH SUFFERING

I am a very sensitive person. Melancholy presses in more than I would care to admit. As I encounter new trials in a variety of new ways as each year passes, often my core longing is to be understood. I yearn for friends to look on and say with tears in their eyes: "Yeah, that's hard, that's more than hard. I wish I could take this pain away for you. Let me pray for you now and pray for you often. I will not vanish from your life because I am uncomfortable with your pain and don't know what to say. I will keep pursuing you, and keep listening, and keep praying."

But I confess, though I have endured many a trial, I too fail to respond this way. It's not natural, somehow. I think it should be, but pain doesn't feel good. It is hard to enter someone else's darkness and not have our own happiness and comfort disturbed. Furthermore, I can either fail to have any imagination or fear to use my imagination to try and enter into another's experience of suffering. It takes some effort. I need to listen to this person's trial extensively. I need to think about this person's trial extensively. If this person is indeed a dear friend, I ought to do a little research on what this friend is suffering. I need to love this person in their trial extensively. To my shame, this can be too much effort. So in yet another way, my happiness and comfort is more important.


JUDGMENT OF SUFFERING

Sadly, it is not only fear and discomfort that can distance me from a suffering friend.  Disbelief, judgment, pride and self-righteousness can quench my compassion.  We see this vividly in the Book of Job, as Job's friends are blinded by their own limited knowledge of suffering.  They foolishly blame Job for his suffering and inundate him with rebuke after rebuke.  They believe Job's suffering was a result of sin, and insist arrogantly that Job must repent.  Their judgment of him is crushing.  To my shame, I confess I have failed to respond to suffering friends in humility, hoping all things and believing all things in love (1 Cor 13:7).  Instead of moving towards my friend, suspicion alters my heart towards them, and I withdraw true compassion.   As I do this, I do NOT grieve with my friend, and that prevents me from bearing their burdens (Gal 6:2).  I withhold sincere love and sisterly affection (Rom 12: 9, 10).  

At this point, an objection starts be wriggling in my mind.  "Don't some people suffer because of their own decisions?  Aren't some people guilty of exaggerating their troubles in order to get attention!"  But I must be careful to not assume this of most people, especially genuine brothers and sisters in Christ!  If we are to be suspicious of anyone, it should first and foremost be of ourselves!  The heart is deceitful above all things (Jeremiah 17:9)!  We should often be found praying, "Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!"  There will be times we need to carefully discern a person's suffering and offer humble, wise and Biblical counsel along with recommending some kind of help from pastors or counsellors if your friend is contributing to their own suffering.  But Romans 12:15 is fairly straightforward.  "Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep."  We are commanded to grieve with those who grieve.  Even when the suffering is a result of sin, we can remind ourselves that have also struggle greatly with sin.  Whether the suffering is innocent or not, we can respond to our friends with compassion.  And where there is sin, we are are called to restore these friends with a spirit of gentleness (Gal 6:1).  

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS:

As I fail to understand the depths of pain my friend is experiencing, or judge what my friend is suffering, my friend is feeling abandoned. Their trust in me is shattered. I appear to be, and actually am, a fair-weather friend. How can this friendship now grow? We may still continue to be in some kind of more casual relationship, but my friend will withdraw and not share their innermost thoughts with me anymore. This friend will shut down the higher stories of intimacy and friendship with me.

In bright and brilliant contrast, Jesus is the fulfillment of friendship we have all been longing for! His perfect, laying down of life compassion is the very quality that has drawn me to Him. He loves like no other:  
Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. ~Hebrews 4:14-16
Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. ~Matthew 11:28-30
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. ~Revelation 21:1-4
I want to be a better friend.  But even more than that, I want to be completely convinced that Jesus is this one, uniquely perfect friend who will never leave me nor forsake me, but knows my griefs intimately and CARES. In my pain and melancholy, I want to trust Him more. And perhaps, as I learn to BELIEVE that He CARES, I will be better equipped to care for my friends, and point them to the ONE who perfectly loves them with an exquisite compassion.

Weeping with those who weep may be hard and uncomfortable. But Jesus calls us to enter into the pain and follow Him who gives grace to help in times of need. Let us be faithful friends, following Jesus in His example of friendship.


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