Daily EncouragementSample

Job’s friends were at their best when they kept quiet and sat with him. The silence of sympathy was more effective than the multitude of words which they later uttered: “How long will you torment me and crush me with words?” (Job 19:2). Reverent silence is always the best reaction to the mystery of unexplained suffering. This is not the silence of helpless despair, but rather an attitude of waiting upon God. It is surely significant that the exhortation to wait on the Lord is sometimes translated as “Be thou silent unto God” (Ps. 62:5, AV).

The godly sufferer longs for the presence of those who will sit with him in silent sympathy. Even our Lord desired it from his disciples: “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me” (Matt. 26:38). We know how, overcome by sleep, they failed him, and we remember the haunting line from Stainer’s Crucifixion: “Could you not watch with me for one brief hour?”

When we set out to visit some suffering saint, let us not be anxious about what we should say. Let us rather pray that the silence will be meaningful as we sit with him before the Lord.