I Understand – No I Don’t!
I wonder how many times, in an attempt to give comfort to some hurting person, I’ve said; “I understand.” I was trying to convey sympathy for the trial, the sickness, or the loss the person was enduring. While saying, “I understand,” is often accepted as a sincere attempt to express compassionate concern, it is not really true.
Early on in our ministries, sensing its inaccuracy, Mary Helen and I had tried to avoid expressing this sentiment to others.
It’s inaccuracy came home to me powerfully during the days when my wife, Mary Helen, was so ill. I was closer to her than anyone, but even I couldn’t comprehend the anxiety that must have gripped her when she struggled to breathe in the night. Or, the helplessness she felt. Sometimes she expressed it. “I feel like a ping pong ball. Unable to get up and down by myself. You don’t understand.” Usually, she just quietly endured or prayed. Usually, she thankfully expressed her gratitude for helpers. I was humbled by her fortitude and faith but, although I tried, I couldn’t really totally understand her struggles.
Now that God has called her home, I know more about our inability to understand others than I care to know. Before I experienced the loss of my sweetheart, I had little idea what grief meant. I knew that men aren’t supposed to cry. But often I can’t stop. Five months have gone by and I don’t understand myself. Why do such intense feelings of loss continue to loosen my tear ducts and thicken my voice? And even though I am now experiencing the loss of my wife of 61 years, I realize that I can’t understand the grief parents must feel at the loss of a child, or what one feels going through cancer therapy.
Each of us, whether suffering or not, have a deep well of unexpressed thoughts and feelings. No one can ever probe its depths.
I can look out the window on the road going through our condo community and watch people come and go. I wonder how the neighbour who lost her husband is doing. And how is the neighbour who recently spent 6 weeks in the hospital and now is unable to get out at all? How about the neighbour who is recovering so well from heart surgery? But what is going on in the lives of neighbours who seem healthy and strong and cheerful? Are they suffering disappointments from family or business? What pain do they carry?
Some months ago, I passed one of those memorials set up along a highway to remember an accident victim. It had been in place for years. A woman was kneeling there placing some fresh flowers beneath the cross. What fresh anguish must she feel? What tears has she shed? Who was she remembering? Could I understand? No.
When we rise at church and sing lustily; “Joyful, joyful, we adore thee,” how many of us are weeping inside—or genuinely rejoicing at the contemplation of God’s grace and his understanding? For he understands. Jesus understands because he came and lived among us, was tempted in all points like us, and died to bear the punishment our sins—including thoughtlessness—deserve. There are actually three who understand; the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. But all three call us to reach out in compassion to others.
Just because we can’t fully understand others doesn’t mean we should not try. We need to do everything we can increase our understanding others. Not only their pain, but who they are as people, their work, their family, their hopes and dreams.
That means that we will be interested in them as people. We will be concerned enough to come alongside them, listen to them, love them. We need to build our empathy-muscles; that capacity to try and put oneself in another’s position, to feel other people’s emotions, to imagine how they might be thinking or feeling.
This practice of expressing empathy starts with listening. James wrote, “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry” (James 1:19). But we are not good listeners. Paul Tournier has said that, “Most conversations are dialogues of the deaf.” What did he mean? To try and help myself to become a better listener, not one deaf to others, I’m going to post a series on Facebook discussing conversation and listening.
Fortunately, even when we fail, Jesus doesn’t, so we need to take our concerns to him first.
No one understands like Jesus;
He’s a Friend beyond compare.
Meet Him at the throne of mercy;
He is waiting for You there.
No one understands like Jesus
When the days are dark and grim.
No one is so near, so dear as Jesus;
Cast Your every care on Him.
No one understands like Jesus;
Every woe He sees and feels.
Tenderly He whispers comfort,
And the broken heart He heal.
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