As a Pastor (as a committed Christian for that matter), I see people in a wide variety of situations. Some are doing well, some are not. A lot of my time is spent trying to understand and communicate how the Truths of Scripture and the Gospel in particular relate to people, no matter their situation.

I worry that as Christians, many of us have tried methods of helping people that actually might do more harm than good. In response to people hurting, for whatever reason, it’s not uncommon for us to immediately say “God works in mysterious ways . . . ” While this is certainly true, it might not be what somebody needs to hear in the midst of their hurt. This is a hindsight reflection rather than a present help. Another common approach is the “Memorize three Scriptures and call me next week” attitude. While Scripture is absolutely sufficient and we need to turn there, this approach is often accompanied with an air of insensitivity.

As Christians, quite often, we know the “right” answers from Scripture. But I wonder if we don’t sometimes fail to realize that those “right” answers were the result of the process of the Holy Spirit’s work in that author’s life, through many circumstances, sometimes over a period of years. While forgetting this process, we sometimes try to force the hurting person to the right conclusion before they are ready. In other words, we forget the process that it takes to get to the right conclusion. As Christians, we’re not comfortable with sorrow and hurt. This is not necessarily a bad thing, no one likes to be in the pit of despair, but in our squeamishness, I worry that we sometimes end up short-circuiting the necessary healing process of people emerging from the pit?

It shouldn’t take long, for example, in the Psalms, to find language that makes our modern comfortable sensibilities quite uncomfortable. For example, Psalm 28 opens: “To you, O LORD, I call; my rock, be not deaf to me, lest, if you be silent to me, I become like those who go down to the pit. Hear the voice of my pleas for mercy, when I cry to you for help, when I lift up my hands toward your most holy sanctuary” (28:1-2). Or consider Psalm 88:

O LORD, God of my salvation;
I cry out day and night before you.
2 Let my prayer come before you;
incline your ear to my cry!
Psalms 88:3 For my soul is full of troubles,
and my life draws near to Sheol.
4 I am counted among those who go down to the pit;
I am a man who has no strength,
5 like one set loose among the dead,
like the slain that lie in the grave,
like those whom you remember no more,
for they are cut off from your hand.
6 You have put me in the depths of the pit,
in the regions dark and deep.
7 Your wrath lies heavy upon me,
and you overwhelm me with all your waves. Selah
Psalms 88:8 You have caused my companions to shun me;
you have made me a horror to them.
I am shut in so that I cannot escape;
9 my eye grows dim through sorrow.
Every day I call upon you, O LORD;
I spread out my hands to you.
10 Do you work wonders for the dead?
Do the departed rise up to praise you? Selah
11 Is your steadfast love declared in the grave,
or your faithfulness in Abaddon?
12 Are your wonders known in the darkness,
or your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?
13 But I, O LORD, cry to you;
in the morning my prayer comes before you.
14 O LORD, why do you cast my soul away?
Why do you hide your face from me?
15 Afflicted and close to death from my youth up,
I suffer your terrors; I am helpless.
16 Your wrath has swept over me;
your dreadful assaults destroy me.
17 They surround me like a flood all day long;
they close in on me together.
18 You have caused my beloved and my friend to shun me;
my companions have become darkness.

Many of the Psalms are not about the conclusion but about the process of getting to that conclusion, of not understanding God’s ways in the dark night of despair, about crying out to Him in the midst of trials. I worry that in our push toward the “right” answer we are actually robbing God’s people of this process and in the end, leaving many with a shallow faith. After all, as “uncomfortable” as it often truly is, our faith is often most strengthened in the midst of trial. Dross is not melted away in the mild Spring sun, it must be put through the refiner’s fire (Isaiah 48:9-11, etc.). If we are always pushing people to the conclusion without allowing them the process are we in fact short-circuiting the process itself?

Too often, our approach to helping people teaches them that the process of hurting itself is bad, but I’m not sure that Scripture actually supports this claim. Hurting draws into a deeper dependence on God and yet if we simply rush people to the conclusion that “for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28) without allowing them to reach for His hand in the middle of their trial, are they really going to believe that truth the next time struggles rise up to greet them?

Hurting people need to know that we hurt too and they need to know that God’s people, portrayed for us in God’s Word hurt too. While we still need to point them to the conclusions, we also need to walk alongside them to those conclusions rather than leading them to believe that just by telling them the truth, their hurting should suddenly end. I don’t know about you, but I find it incredibly important that David’s struggles as well as David’s victories are recorded for us in the Psalms. While we can’t leave people in the midst of the struggle, I’m not convinced that we can rush people out of it either.

• Read God’s Prayer Program: Passionately Using the Psalms in Prayer by T.M. Moore