Side by Side: Walking with Others in Wisdom and Love

by Edward T. Welch

When happy, we possess something we love; when anxious, something we love is at risk; when despondent, something we love has been lost; when angry, something we love is being stolen or kept from us.

We could sum up our emotions this way: they usually proceed from our hearts, are given shape by our bodies, reflect the quality of our relationships, bear the etchings of both the goodness and the meaninglessness of work, provide a peek into how we fare in spiritual battle, and identify what we really believe about God.

“Something is not right in my body or brain.” In other words, strong emotions are a time to ask, “What is my heart really saying? What do I live for that I do not have?” But we might not get clear answers to those questions.

could call it “worship”—that’s what is happening in our hearts. Who we love above all else is who we worship, and who we worship controls us.

Our sin says, “I want my independence”; “I don’t want to be associated with you”; “I want more than you can offer me”; “I know what is best for me”; or—and this is scary—“I hate you” (James 4:4).

We don’t always know we are saying these things, but that is the nature of the heart.

Anxious people know they are needy, but their instincts are to worry their way through doomsday scenarios so they can be prepared. Meanwhile Scripture urges us to pray rather than to feed anxiety

Our inclination is to live self-sufficient lives. When there is trouble, we first try to figure it out, then we worry, as if there is no one who cares or hears. Or maybe we give God the cold shoulder because he didn’t give us what we had hoped for, or we hide from him because we cherish sins in our private world. There are probably dozens of reasons why we resist calling out to the Lord.

There are mysteries in deliverance, but since God has identified himself as our savior or rescuer, we are confident that we will see deliverance, even if it looks different from what we first expected.

Paul had Jesus, which meant that he had everything—life, love, fellowship with the Father and the Spirit, and all good things. With Jesus in view, his troubles, though extreme, felt transient and less burdensome (2 Cor. 4:17–18).

If our knowledge of God is weak, we are left with a god who is a strange composite of truth, satanic lies, our projected desires and expectations, our experiences with our parents, and the accumulation of life’s hurts. This is not the God of the cross who loved us while we were enemies, and this composite will not sustain us.

Every cry of our hearts can be further shaped by Scripture. We cry out, God reveals more of his heart to us, we learn of him and speak more, he reveals himself more, we respond in thanks, and on and on. We need this communication,

Whatever our monument might be, we want it to be public, even if the public is one friend. The psalmists were experts at these things. They would cry out to the Lord in the midst of their miseries and recount his faithfulness, and if they could not notice God’s faithfulness from the day’s events, they would review Israel’s past, stake their confidence on how he had forgiven sins, and then speak publicly about his faithfulness (Ps. 130:7–8).

When we have good news, it should be announced. Our task is simple: ask for prayer and then let those who have prayed for us know what God has done. It is simple, but it is also a powerful intrusion of the Spirit in the everyday life of the church.

but a good rule of thumb is that when you are stuck in hardships or sins, you keep enlarging the circle of those who know until you are no longer stuck.

Are you feeling ordinary or a little less so? Do you have the Spirit? If so, you are just the person God has been looking for. When you, in your weakness, move toward others, you honor God and are more powerful than you know. You are qualified by the Spirit.

we move toward those who want help and those who seem distant and marginalized.

Consider whom you are greeting. They are children of the King, your brothers and sisters. Some might feel lost, which is all the more reason to greet them. Others might be seeking something but are unsure what that is, and we have the privilege to invite them to a place that could be home. Others we have seen before, but we don’t yet know their names.

Greetings, of course, take time. This means our greeting list might be short, because we have a finite amount of time when the church is gathered—or when a friend is walking by on the street. We cannot greet everyone. So here is how we prioritize: The visitor (what Scripture calls the “foreigner” or “alien”) comes first. The visitor who returns comes next. The less popular, the introverts, the marginalized, or those sitting alone come next. Then come the children. Jesus singles them out as examples of the marginalized. “Hi, _______” is offered to as many people as possible, which doesn’t have to be accompanied by a hug or a handshake.

remember this.

Good friends are interspersed through these greetings, but they are left for later if time is short. A reasonable application of Scripture is to greet one person we don’t know or don’t know well every time we gather with others in the body of Christ. And if we feel a little awkward? All the better. Some people are naturals at moving toward others, greeting them and striking up a conversation. Most of us are not. So we pray that we will share in this feature of God’s character. We move toward others, not because we can do these things with ease but because of Jesus.

question about health can reveal thankfulness or fear. So we keep our ears open for details that are important to someone. This may sound clinical, but it’s not. It’s what you do naturally when you are interested in someone. You follow the affections. You follow what excites, what is prized, and what is hard.

Once we pray with or for someone, we are in the ongoing story of his life, and it is an honor to be there.

The goal here is to keep our eyes open for good things in others. When we see good things, we savor them and point them out.

Just keep heading toward the heart. It is the repository for our emotional life, and good comes from its springs. Keep looking until you see the good, and you will see it.

Long Stories Listening to the long stories might require a shared meal. “How did you become a follower of Jesus? The longer version, please.”

important: “How did you get into this kind of work?” “Tell me about the family you were raised in.” “How did you meet your spouse?” “What have you learned in marriage?” It doesn’t get much better than hearing someone’s story. Knowing and being known. Openness. A growing friendship. And as we grow in these things, we should expect this general rule: the better you know other people, the more you enjoy and appreciate them—that is, the more you love them. And the more you love them, the more you will be invited into their lives during hardships.

Instead, we want to draw out another: “What happened next?” Otherwise, your friend will feel that you really didn’t hear her story and may be reluctant to share other, harder stories with you.

when we get the slightest whiff of it. When you don’t know what is important in someone’s story, just ask: “What is most meaningful to you about this? What is the hardest part of this problem for you?”

we listen carefully for clues, draw people out, and partner in both joys and burdens.

We move toward others. We greet them. We have short but meaningful conversations. We gradually discover what is important to them. We begin to pray for them. We see the good. We like them. We enjoy them. We have longer conversations. We continue to pray for them.

Suffering is the trouble that comes at us. Sin is the trouble that comes out of us.

But even there, we might talk about the hard things that preceded the specific sin before we focus on the sin itself. We typically talk about our hardships with each other before we talk about our sin.

In a sense, compassion is enjoyment’s companion. We enjoy the good things in someone and have compassion during the hard things.

Instead we could ask, “What can I do to help?” Or (better) we could consider what needs to be done and do it. Wise friends buy more dog food, do the dishes, drop off a meal, cut the grass, babysit the kids, clean the house, give a ride to small group, drop off a note of encouragement and then another and another, help sort out medical bills, and so on.

Each one of those beliefs yields well-intended but hurtful words because we have the story wrong. It is so important that we get the story of suffering right.

Jesus himself matured under hardship; we will too.

As we suffer, our hearts are exposed. We can see where we put our trust: in people, money, pleasure, and power—or in God. But that is a benefit of suffering, not necessarily the cause. We are tested daily by trouble and hardship, as royal children always are, and we expect these trials to grow faith rather than kill it.

With this simple suggestion, it is as if the universe opens before us. A two-dimensional conversation—between you and another person—goes three-dimensional.

We bring light into claustrophobic darkness, where our friend might be alone and without hope. We remind her that God hears. We revisit the promises of God. And we do all this in a way that leads with compassion. That simple call to prayer is crammed with spiritual realities.

Comfort might mean simply that the storm of suffering would lessen, or it might mean that the suffering would be increasingly outweighed by the knowledge of Christ and what we have in him (2 Cor. 4:16)—or both. We

When we pray for faith, we pray to be able to see clearly and trust more fully.

When we pray for faith, our hope is that someone will see through the immediate circumstances and into spiritual realities: God has rescued us, incorporated us into the line of the suffering servant, has forgiven our sins, is so near that he dwells within us, and will give us power to believe, hope, and even love in the midst of the trouble. Faith sees beyond the morass of our present sufferings. It sees that suffering has a purpose.

We know our deepest needs, and to reach for anything short of these is unloving. When we pray for faith, we are praying for what is most important.

When we keep track of Scripture’s prayers and the ways we can pray for each other, the list includes prayer for wisdom (James 1:5), unity (John 17:29–31), fellowship and encouragement (1 Thess. 3:10), love and discernment (Phil. 1:9–10), knowledge of God’s will (Col. 1:9), perseverance (Col. 1:11), faith that lasts (Luke 22:32), fruitfulness (Col. 1:10), the fruits of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22–23), and the armor of God (Eph. 6:10). Any of these can be appropriate extensions to our daily petitions.

To follow up with them all would be impossible. As a way to prioritize the needs, it is best for us to focus on people we actually see, those we can pray with.

Identify one person, then two, perhaps three. Growth proceeds in small steps. Pray and follow up. Pray and follow up. Pray and follow up.

will be a future and better deliverance. But then Jesus, the second Adam, walked out into a deadly wilderness, which is a garden cursed. He

Suffering, we now know, is enough to summon Satan. Jesus certainly knew that, which is why he warned his disciples, “Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation.”

Scripture and prayer are our primary means of doing battle.

Scripture, prayer, and the assurance that we too will know resurrection with Jesus are our primary protection, so that’s what we bring. Following are some examples of what you might say. “How can I pray for you?” The question reminds us of spiritual realities, and prayer will always be an essential way to stand firm. “Any questions about God or for him?” “Satan waits for desperate times. Are there ways he’s sneaking up on you? Any lies that he’s tossing around?”