We have been inundated with articles on mental illness lately. I post a lot of these because I would be under that category and because I post a fair amount about suffering on this blog. There is a Category on the right for suffering and also a link to the old Suffering Christians blog.

I’ve read things from Oswald Chambers and D. Martin Lloyd-Jones about what I call “real psychology” and thought they were ahead of their time–earlier and middle of the last century. As it turns out, the Puritans were way ahead of their time. They even recognized that there can be physiological components to depression, which many people today still don’t believe. I’ve read that the contemporary book Helpful Truth in Past Places: The Puritan Practice of Biblical Counselling by Mark A. Deckard is a good place to start.

The Puritans and Mental Illness | HeadHeartHand Blog

The following is a good article about how certain terms can be hurtful and unhelpful. I don’t think there is a need to go all politically correct on this, but there should be some guidelines, especially for journalists who write about these things. I don’t really mind the terms like mental, headcase, wacko or whatever, unless they’re meant in a truly hateful manner. (Sometimes we shouldn’t take ourselves too seriously either.) I think it’s the proper medical terms used incorrectly that can be especially unhelpful. The writer of the article mentions calling yourself “a little bit OCD”. I’m extremely particular, almost to the point of being ‘certifiable’, but I’ve stopped using the term ‘a little OCD’ once I learned how awful being truly OCD really is. It’s not funny. And people always get schizophrenia wrong. They’re usually meaning ‘multiple personality disorder’, as in a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Or people who say one thing and then another, which could just be hypocrisy. Schizophrenia is awful (I’m not), and not funny or something that should be used when a more accurate term could be.

Another area is when someone is chronically depressed and they’ve tried everything, and have lived with it for decades, and then when mustering up the courage to mention it, have someone else say, “Yeah, I get depressed too.” That’s a tough one because there are so many degrees of depression. Same goes for anxiety and a number of other things, including chronic [physical] pain.

The article also mentions that those who are mentally ill are not likely to be more violent than the general population. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard people say, “Yeah, she’s Biopolar, so she’s kind of dangerous” or something to that effect. I deal with Bipolar Disorder (Bipolar II on the depressed end of the spectrum, or the unofficial term Bipolar Depression, if you’re familiar) and I know there’s no truth to that. Being Bipolar doesn’t make someone violent or mean.

By the way, incorrect spellings would be Bi-polar or BiPolar, if you happen to be writing about it. Bipolar Disorder is the general term, but there are two basic types, being I and II (1 and 2) and it’s a spectrum disorder in many ways. So two people who both suffer from ‘Bipolar Disorder’ could have varying symptoms that vary in severity.

‘Crazy Talk’: How We Characterize Mental Illness | Her.meneutics | Christianitytoday.com

The 9 words you missed. – This is a post about hope. I identify with the majority of what he says. I’m basically in a permanent “season of hurt”, so I get a lot of practice. I really like his “edge verses”. I call them “verses off the beaten path”, which I like to post on Twitter or Facebook when I come across them if they don’t require explanation–especially the OT, but his term sounds less like some are more important than others.

A couple of Reformed resources:

Westminster Theological Seminary – The Westminster Theological Journal – this has somehow failed to acquire my attention until now

The Beatitudes by Thomas Watson – free ebook in various formats and even as an MP3 audio book too

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Romans 15:13

To me, suicide is almost an unmentionable word because it’s such a horrible thing. It’s in the news now because of pastor Rick Warren’s son. We can’t ignore it because it does happen and because if we do ignore it, we could miss the signs of someone wanting to kill themselves and not intervene when we might have been able to help. They’re not thinking rationally–which I’ve experienced myself, as have many of you–and we may be able to help them to think more objectively.

At the same time, there are many people who live with a tremendous amount of guilt because they felt that they should have intervened and didn’t. The responsibility goes to the person who ended their life–and who probably hid the signs well–and not the person who felt they could have done something. People who are intent on going through with it aren’t going to let others know about it.

These two links contain a plethora of information. I know that I just posted a page with links on Dealing With Depression (and the last link is very good if you haven’t seen it), but I think it’s important enough to post more that I’ve recently found.

Depression & Suicide Articles, Devotionals & Current Events News at crosswalk.com

Suicide, Mental Illness, Depression, and the Church – Justin Taylor – covers it from all angles with all kinds of resources

Depression is something that affects me on a daily basis, and suffering is something written about here fairly often. For those who want to read more on that topic or if you know someone who does, and would like quotes, Scripture, reading material etc., you can see the old Suffering Christians blog, which has very organized Categories, and also go to the Suffering category here in the right column.

Also see:

• 7 Questions about Suicide and Christians | HeadHeartHand Blog
• Mental Illness & Suicide: The Church Awakes | HeadHeartHand Blog
• Pastoral Thoughts on Depression | HeadHeartHand Blog
• For those considering suicide . . . | Parchment and Pen
• My Take: How churches can respond to mental illness – CNN Belief Blog

If you base your faith on lack of affliction, your faith lives on the brink of extinction and will fall apart because of a frightening diagnosis or a shattering phone call. Token faith will not survive suffering, nor should it.

–Randy Alcorn, If God  is Good, pg. 12

I’ve heard people say things like, “Boy I’m glad God was watching out for us, otherwise something really bad may have happened.” So if something bad happened then how do you see God? What about the young Christian listening to you who was in a similar situation and it turned out differently?

This one may require a second read, as it did for me:

God is both our greatest problem and solution. His presence is the worst news or the best news, the most fearful threat or the most cheerful comfort. From Genesis to Revelation, there is this struggle, this awkwardness, ranging from indescribable joy to utter terror, when we talk about God’s presence or face.

This is far indeed from the modern triviality with which we treat this subject. We assume that God is near, and that this is necessarily good news, without needing to hear anything more said. Or when we are tormented by life’s circumstances, we assume that God is far away, when in fact, as the cross itself demonstrates and Paul attests in his own suffering, it is precisely there and then when God is closest. That’s the paradox. Our experience is simply wrong. Things are not as they seem. God is most intimately involved in our lives often when we least experience him. Such contradictions of our ordinary experience are abundant even in the natural sciences. It was perfectly understandable that people once upon a time thought that the earth was flat, the sun and the moon were roughly the same size, and the earth was the center of the universe: after all, this matches the most universal experience of ordinary people. However, we know better now, because more thorough and sophisticated analysis has challenged such commonly held notions. How much more likely it is, then, that our ordinary experience of God and his ways can be challenged by his own revelation!

–Michael Horton, A Place for Weakness: Preparing Yourself for Suffering

Aren’t two sparrows sold for a penny? Not one of them will fall to the ground without your Father’s permission.
Matthew 10:29 GW

That’s what many still think. I have been spared the hurt that many people who are suffering experience because of other Christians who are eerily similar to Job’s friends.

Some people are suffering guilt and depression because of sin. This can be repaired through the help of people pointing them to what Jesus did on the cross for them and help them to learn what behaviors and ways of thinking they need to change. And this is the case with everyone to a degree.

But there are also things that go on in our brains and body that we just can’t explain. People want to, because people like to be “right” and have answers.

Why does such suffering take place? We want an answer. We want to say, for instance, that human suffering is a result of sin—at least, those of us who aren’t in pain at the moment hope so. After all, we can control our pain that way. We can delude ourselves into thinking that as long as we are good, we won’t suffer.

–Suffering and the Book of Job

Through seeing some ugly comments on Facebook–not my friends thankfully–I can see how misguided many people are. None of the ones who have the ‘answers’ are the ones who are suffering with severe chronic mental illness.

My heart is broken. I can’t imagine how awful it must be to be suffering and be surrounded by people like this. It’s a very complex issue. There are in fact doctors over-prescribing pills, people who don’t feel good and want a pill to feel better because they have a “right” to be happy and healthy, people who minimize sin, disorders that shouldn’t be labeled as disorders. I could go on and on. But concerning the misguided notions, I feel like I could write a book based on what I’ve read in the last few days. But I don’t have the skill, authority and especially the energy, because of course if I examined my sin my energy could be restored.

I don’t know why I get into it with these people. I’m extremely confident in my views on many of these things–including what I don’t know–based on years or decades (depending on the condition) of reading the Bible, stacks of books, hundreds of articles, listening to talks and sermons, hundreds of hours of counseling, trying enough medications that I feel like a pharmacist, diets and supplements, seeing many doctors, and thinking for thousands of hours trying to figure things out. But the happy people seem to have many of the answers based on what they want to think. I don’t get to fix my life according to what I think, no matter how hard I try.

I don’t mean to sound arrogant, but do you think that someone who isn’t very experienced in these things can give advice to someone who’s done what I’ve done and gone through what I’ve gone through? I’m not trying to sound special. There are many, many others just like what I’ve described and many who suffering from various conditions much worse than me. And the sad thing is that many of those people are suffering even more because of the happy people who know more than you do. Because, if you knew more, or tried harder, or listened to this sermon or read this book, or tried this supplement, or ‘gave it to God’, you wouldn’t be suffering so much, right?

After Job and the friends finish their sermons, God finally speaks up and preaches for himself. Out of the whirlwind, he answers Job: “Who is this that darkens my counsel with words without knowledge? Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me. Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand” (Job 38:2–4 NIV). After listing a litany of divine actions that illustrate his wisdom and power over the universe, God shuts the mouths of Job and his well-meaning friends. For they have all been arguing on the basis of their own experience and common sense. They have all operated under the assumption that they could read God’s mind on the surface of the events.

How easily we attempt this when suffering strikes us or our loved ones! We immediately strike out to rationalize the purpose behind it all. But God refuses to be figured out in these matters, and his counsel is hidden to mortals. God asks them all, “Can you make a pet of [me] like a bird or put [me] on a leash for your girls?… Any hope of subduing [me] is false; the mere sight of [me] is overpowering… Who then is able to stand against me? Who has a claim against me that I must pay? Everything under heaven belongs to me” (Job 41:5, 9–11).

Job’s friends had all the answers: Job’s suffering was the effect of his sin, or of his failure to claim victory over his circumstances. Refusing to buy into their works-righteousness and hollow platitudes, Job became an existentialist, preferring no answers to wrong answers. God was sovereign and just, but in the abstract, he concluded.

For those who are tied to the high masts of suffering, there is often a fear greater than the fear of death. It is the fear of life. It is the fear of the next morning, and the morning after that [and having to listen to well-meaning 'friends']. In the face of deep despair, the temptation is great to turn away from God because the suffering is somehow credited to his wrath toward personal sins rather than to turn toward him because one knows that he or she is at peace with God. This is why Job has said he would be able to turn toward God in this situation if only he had a go-between, an advocate. Gradually, he came to a greater confidence in this mediator. The confession bears repeating: “Even now my witness is in heaven; my advocate is on high. My intercessor is my friend as my eyes pour out tears to God; on behalf of a man he pleads with God as a man pleads for his friend” (Job 16:19–21 NIV).

Michael Horton, A Place for Weakness: Preparing Yourself for Suffering

Praise God we have an Advocate and a Healer who has healed the believer’s relationship with Him and gives us the grace to not only endure suffering, but uses it to draw us to Himself so that it’s not for nothing. I hate the fact that there is suffering, but how much worse it would be if there was no benefit at all from it in this life. I pray for those who have suffering heaped upon suffering, and that it would eventually give them all the more confidence in our Lord.

Eight Helps for Coping with Affliction by Joel Beeke

The Puritans really had a good handle on counseling, suffering and psychology. Here are some examples:

• Helpful Truth in Past Places: The Puritan Practice of Biblical Counselling
• A Lifting Up for the Downcast (Puritan Paperbacks) by William Bridge – I just bought this
• Overcoming Worry by David Clarkson, James T. O’Brien, New Puritan Press: Kindle Store
• The Puritans on How to Care for the Sick and Dying: A Contemporary Guide for Pastors and Counselors by Christopher W. Bogosh
• A Grief Sanctified (Including Richard Baxter’s Timeless Memoir of His Wife’s Life and Death): Through Sorrow to Eternal Hope by J. I. Packer, Richard Baxter

Question 1 of the New City Catechism is worth it even if I don’t go through the rest of it. It starts out with a bang. Thinking about it this whole last week has been very good for me.

Q1: What is our only hope in life and death?

A: That we are not our own, but belong, body and soul, in life and death, to God and to our Savior Jesus Christ.

I know I belong to God but often forget that I’m not my own. That’s the tough part for me.

Recently I’ve been having a hard time dealing with with my long standing conditions–Biploar depression (more of a description than an official term), anxiety, fatigue, and back pain–all chronic. I don’t say this to try to sound special, there are millions who have it a lot worse than me. And it’s nothing to show off about. But I’ve been having a hard time dealing with living like this and that this is where God has me.

As I’ve written before, one of my main spiritual gauges is A.W. Tozer’s The Pursuit of God. This little book is so challenging, I had to admit I couldn’t quite fully ‘get with the program’ the first time I read it. But when I read it again years later, I was so broken and low, I was willing to give it all up, which is often what it takes for us to surrender to God to that degree.

But as time goes on, I want a little more control, I want to try to figure more things out on my own (not that I don’t do regular reading, research, and work on things everyday), feel like I shouldn’t have to have it this bad, etc. It creeps up, being almost unnoticeable. It comes down to knowing that I’m not my own and God has planned everything for good (Gen 50:20). Realizing this through the Holy Spirit’s conviction is the first step.

Whether we are well or broken, we are not our own, which isn’t something we read and hear much of these days. Maybe that’s why Q1 is where it is in the catechism. Why not? See Calvin’s quote for that day (c:) for a wider application than this post, which I hope isn’t too indulgent.

For none of us lives for ourselves alone, and none of us dies for ourselves alone. If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.
Romans 14:7–8 Keller (?)

You have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
Colossians 3:3 GW

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own?
1 Corinthians 6:19

The LORD said to him, “Who gave human beings their mouths? Who makes them deaf or mute? Who gives them sight or makes them blind? Is it not I, the LORD?
Exodus 4:11 NIV

“Rabbi,” his disciples asked him, “why was this man born blind? Was it because of his own sins or his parents’ sins?” “It was not because of his sins or his parents’ sins,” Jesus answered. “This happened so the power of God could be seen in him.”
John 9:3 NLT

Lamentations 3:37-38 Who can speak and have it happen if the Lord has not decreed it?
38 Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that both calamities and good things come?
Lamentations 3:37-38 NIV

For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
16 your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
Psalm 139:13-16 NIV

“The cross does not give us a minor shift or two with regard to a few of our ethical and moral and religious values. The cross radically disrupts the very center and citadel of your life from self to Christ. And if the cross has not done that, you’re not a Christian!”

–Albert Martin, Sermon: Warning to Professing Christians

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I didn’t find this on the Web–not this translation anyway–so I thought I would type it out and post it.

Hence arose that aspiration which believers used as a solace of misery and as a remedy for suffering: “The Lord’s anger is but for a moment, but his mercy is for a lifetime” [Ps. 30:5]. How could they end their afflictions in a moment when they were afflicted almost throughout life? Where could they see such long-lasting divine generosity, when they had scarcely tasted it? If they had clung to the earth, they could have found nothing like this. But because they looked up to heaven, they acknowledged that the saints suffer the cross at the Lord’s hands “only for a monent”; “the mercies” they recieve “are everlasting” [Isa. 54:7-8 p.]. On the other hand, they foresaw an eternal and never-ending ruin of the wicked who had for one day been happy as in a dream.

–John Calvin, Institutes, II. x. 18, pg 444-445, Battles translation, Vol. I

Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. 3 For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.
Colossians 3:1-3

This is something in the category of Suffering, which would have gone on the old Suffering Christians blog.

If the cross of Christ, the most evil act in human history, can be in line with God’s will and be the source of the decisive defeat of the very evil that caused it, then any other evil can also be subverted to the cause of good.

More than that, if the death of Christ is mysteriously a blessing, then any evil that the believer experiences can be a blessing too. Yes, the curse is reversed; yes, blessings will flow; but who declared that these blessings have to be in accordance with the aspirations and expectations of affluent America? The lesson of the cross for Luther is that the most blessed person upon earth, Jesus Christ himself, was revealed as blessed precisely in his suffering and death. And if that is the way that God deals with his beloved son, have those who are united to him by faith any right to expect anything different?

…

in the moment of the cross, it becomes clear that evil is utterly subverted for good. Romans 8:28 is true because of the cross of Christ: if God can take the greatest of evils and turn it to the greatest of goods, then how much more can he take the lesser evils which litter human history, from individual tragedies to international disasters, and turn them to his good purpose as well.

–Carl Trueman, Luther’s Theology of the Cross, New Horizons (October 2005) — regarding Martin Luther’s Theses at the Heidelberg Disputation

HT: Warren Cruz at Underdog Theology – go there for Luther’s theses and Trueman’s article, which is fantastic

This is one of the more complete books on suffering that I’ve read, and pertains directly to dealing with chronic suffering. The book is thoroughly Biblical and steeped in Scripture. And although I disagree with much of her theology (I’m Reformed, she’s an Arminian brand of Lutheran or something along those lines), most of that is secondary. She repeats some terms like Trinitarian God and meta-narrative ad nauseum, but that’s a minor nitpick.

Marva Dawn is someone who suffers from multiple chronic conditions herself, so she speaks from experience and this is part of why the book is thorough. She offers words of comfort, encouragement and sympathy but doesn’t go too far. The book is very well organized and edited, with just the right amount of words. She writes equally about physical and psychological suffering from an orthodox Christian perspective. Despite a few catch phrases that I don’t like (going along with some of the theology I disagree with), Dawn knows her Scripture and it’s evident that she is good with using it in context and interpreting it well while applying it to the situation of a sufferer.

I would recommend this very complete, encouraging, educational and Scriptural book to anyone who is suffering, wants to understand those who do, or anyone who just wrestles with the subject.

A couple of quotes:

One of my biggest problems in dealing with the breakdown of my body is that I keep looking in the wrong direction. I look to the past and the capabilities I once had, instead of looking to the future and what I will someday become in the presence and by the grace of God. Perhaps that is the strongest temptation for you too. Our culture reinforces that mistake by its refusal to talk about heaven, as if it were an old-fashioned and outdated notion. We also intensify the problem by craving present health (as limited as it can be) more than we desire God.

A friend once said to me. “This is so hard getting old—there are so many things we can‘t do any more. I guess the Lord wants to teach us something.” Indeed, our bodies will never be what they previously were, and we find that difficult because we miss our former activities. But God wants to teach us to hunger for Him, our greatest treasure. Instead of rejecting the notion of heaven, we genuinely ache in our deepest self to fill that concept with a larger landscape of the Joy of basking in God‘s presence.

–Marva Dawn, Being Well When We’re Ill, pg 231

On feeling guilty about lack of ‘productivity’:

In a time of infirmity, the illness IS one’s work. Taking care of all the disciplines that our health problems require IS the other part of the small daily fidelity to which we are called, beside the faithfulness of being attentive to God. We can be well simply by our diligence in being who we are at the moment.

–Marva Dawn, Being Well When We’re Ill, pg 137

• “The Single Best Book on Christian Suffering Available”
• Sometimes God Doesn’t Open Doors
• WHY DISABILITIES?

It was good for me to be afflicted
so that I might learn your decrees.
The law from your mouth is more precious to me
than thousands of pieces of silver and gold.
Psalm 119:71-72

Though he brings grief,
he will show compassion,
so great is his unfailing love.
For he does not willingly bring affliction
or grief to anyone.
Lamentations 3:32-33

For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ.
2 Corinthians 1:5 NIV

Mary was dying, but for the purposes of this post, let’s say suffering. Her wonderful friends from church were helping her out in meaningful, practical ways and reminding her and her husband, “We’re praying for you . . . the Lord is faithful.” But Mary couldn’t focus or talk about other spiritual things because there were so many Christian friends around her telling her that she would be healed.

Well-intentioned, but poorly informed brothers and sisters who try to deflect people from thinking about death [or the possibility of not being healed and having to live with infirmity], or who hold out the constant hope of healing, keep them so occupied with matters in this world that they have neither the time nor the energy to think about the next world. They succeed only in robbing their loved ones of the enormous comforts of the gospel as they step into eternity.

–D.A. Carson, Be Still, My Soul (25 Classic and Contemporary Readings on the Problem of Pain): Embracing God’s Purpose and Provision in Suffering, chapter titled Dying Well, pg 115, previous text based on that

I have always said, and will continue to say, that if someone is suffering or ill, if we only pray for healing, we are doing them a great disservice, whether they are healed or not. If they are healed, that’s fantastic and God will be glorified, praised and thanked. But will the sufferer have gained anything of lasting value? If they’re not healed, have they gained anything at all? If it’s God’s will not to heal them, why didn’t we pray for what we know is in God’s will? How do we know what God’s will is for that person? It’s all over our favorite book. (See the blog post below to see those things.) Then they will have been helped, and hopefully will continue to be cared for in prayer.

To be extremely cynical, I wonder if people just pray for healing so that if they’re healed, they don’t have to pray for them anymore. I think it has to do more with being “poorly informed”.

If we really believe that God is purposeful in suffering, that our suffering is not meaningless or random, shouldn’t that affect how we pray about the suffering in our lives and in the lives of others? As it is, we pretty much only know how to pray for suffering to be removed—for there to be healing, relief, restoration. Praying for anything less seems less than compassionate. But shouldn’t the purposes for suffering we find in Scripture guide our prayers more than our predetermined positive outcomes? We could make a very long list of purposes for which God intends to use suffering according to the Scripture.

–Nancy Guthrie, read the rest, including what those Scriptural things are – Praying Past Our Preferred Outcomes

Nancy Guthrie also happens to be the editor of the book from which D.A. Carson is quoted and shown below. Click on it to see it at Amazon, or read my Mini-Review of it.

Also listen to:
Is Your Church a Safe Place for Sad People? Learning to Walk with Each Other Through Loss

HT: Dave–commenter below

Be Still, My Soul (25 Classic and Contemporary Readings on the Problem of Pain): Embracing God’s Purpose and Provision in Suffering
David Martyn Lloyd-Jones (Contributor), D. A. Carson (Contributor), J. I. Packer (Contributor), Nancy Guthrie (Editor), Jerry Bridges (Contributor)

Many short chapters all written by different people from different times. Many are Reformed, some aren’t, like A.W. Tozer (I really don’t know what he was except a great Christan thinker), Philip Yancey, who wrote two books on suffering, and more. This may be the best book on suffering that I’ve read even though no single chapter goes into a lot of depth. It’s also good for finding other quality books on living the Christian life. I can’t imagine how Nancie Guthrie found all of these great nuggets, many of them well off the beaten path.

Also see: In Store Now – Be Still, My Soul at Baker Books Church Connection

Edit: Sorry, this went back up to $11.69 within hours after I posted what’s below. It has good used prices (for now!). I thought maybe it was a decimal point error but probably not. It still looks like a great book. I’ve had it on my list for a long time and can’t remember where I first read about it. If it’s on my main list it was usually highly recommended. If you have read it and would like to comment, please do.
———-
I have this on my list and happened to see that right now the paperback edition is $1.94. It has good reviews.

To Those Who Suffer: Understanding God’s Purpose and Pathway Through Pain

I may write some posts on how not to deal with those who are suffering. This could be the first of a few or just by itself. I must warn you that this is a rant.

When praying for those who are suffering, or anyone for that matter, there are often things they ask for prayer for, but there are also other things we may pray for that are the ‘hidden things’ that we pray but don’t necessarily mention. These things are ideally things that God has given you insight into or that you’ve just noticed about them. You pray for them but don’t necessarily tell them that you are, especially if they are weaknesses they may have, or you just want to let the Holy Spirit work and see what happens.

Then there are things where someone says, “I’m praying for you for your difficulty and also that you will…” This is no longer prayer. It’s a suggestion. You’re telling the person what you think they should be doing, or what would make you feel good so you’re “suggesting” that they do it also because of course it would make them feel better too. These usually aren’t spiritual things, so they may or may not be God’s will. And now you won’t know if the person does these things because you suggested them or because God is strengthening them to be able to do them, if they even want to.

As an example, you may say, “I’m praying that you’ll get out and get more sun (because vitamin D will heal you), that you’ll see your friend more and that you’ll play that sport you used to play.” Well, maybe they’re taking medication that makes them extremely sensitive to the sun (which is actually the case with me), maybe that friend isn’t a friend anymore or isn’t good for them to be in contact with. You may think they should be more social, but sometimes God wants a period of time where He just wants us for Himself. Who knows. They may not have the energy to play that sport anymore or they may not be able to play it well enough for it to be enjoyable any longer.

Often when people are suffering, people feel they have the right to tell them what they think they should be doing. All the while this person is probably doing other activities they enjoy that require less energy or that they’re better able to handle and they may be actually growing a lot more spiritually because of their suffering than the person giving them the “advice”. I don’t know if there is a name for this phenomenon, but it happens all the time. Ask anyone who suffers chronically.

If I may make a suggestion: pray for things they’ve asked for prayer for. If you receive insight from God or from your own senses, use it privately and carefully, not to judge but to lovingly intercede for them. (There is a great quote by Oswald Chambers on this that I can’t find.) Pray for things that are definitely God’s will. You will find them in the Bible. And realize that they aren’t you and you aren’t them and conventional “wisdom” isn’t always the way to go. They don’t enjoy suffering and are doing more than you think to get out of it or to cope. And at some point when your turn comes up, you may actually be asking them for advice on how to grow spiritually or cope with suffering.

The two things people need the most are listening and prayer.

I hope that wasn’t too curmudgeony and I hope it helps someone see things from a different perspective. And those who are suffering need to “make allowance for each others’ faults and forgive anyone who offends them. Remember, the Lord forgave you so you must forgive others.” (Colossians 3:13) We need to use this as an opportunity to grow all the more.