Transcript
The tendency of people when you're around somebody who's suffering is try to say something that will lift a person suffering. I think one of the first things you need to say to yourself is, "I am absolutely unable to alter this person's experience, so my words are not going to remove suffering."
Incarnating Truth Instead of Platitudes
The reason I'm saying that is that it's very easy just to throw spiritual platitudes at people. That's very different from incarnating those truths in the way that you respond to a person. How do I make the truth of God's nearness visible and real to people? By being near, I become the look on God's face, I become the tone of His voice, I become the touch of His hand. I don't give a drive-by, God's near because at that point, it's hard for a person to get a hold of that.
I had, for example, people who would text me a choir singing a great hymn on mornings where I was low. That's God coming near to me through somebody who was near. People who would visit me and not preach to me, but ask me questions about what I was going through. That's God caring for me, God entering into my experience. Be the theology that you're preaching to people. Don't just preach it from a distance.
And so, that reality that I want to provide a visible representation of the things that God says to me is very, very important. I like to say it this way. God makes His invisible grace visible by sending people of grace to give grace to people who need grace. That's how it works. Be one of those people.
