Video Transcript: Communication Objective - Comfort

All right, welcome again to the effective communication class by professors,  Steven Elzinga. That's me, of course, hope you're doing well, keeping up on the  reading and the quizzes. Hope that you're learning how to be more effective in  your communication. In this session, we're going to look at the objective  communication objective of comfort. How do you communicate comfort to  someone? I Corinthians 1:1-3, Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord  Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion, and the God of all comfort, who  comforts us in our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the  comfort we ourselves have received from God. God gives us comfort, we are  then called upon to give comfort to others. Well, what is comfort, the word  comfort has two root words in it. And the first means with the com means with,  and the fort means fortitude, or strength. So when you communicate comfort to  somebody, you are bringing your you're bringing a message with strength. So  you're really giving something to help someone who is weak? Well, why are  people weak understanding when and why people need comfort? First of all,  number one, fear. People have fears, fears about how they're going to make a  living fears about how they fit into a culture, fears about whether they're going to be used by God fears, death, fears of sickness, fears of broken relationships,  fears of never finding your purpose in life, people have all kinds of fears.  Sometimes people have fears, and they don't even know why they're afraid,  they're afraid that they left the stove on when they go somewhere. They're,  they're afraid of what people think of them. So there's a lot of fears. Number two  disappointment. People are disappointed by maybe you're disappointed in this  class, maybe you're disappointed that, that your church hasn't recognized that  you're learning things. They don't let you lead or let you do things in your church. disappointment in relationships, disappointment, in your culture, disappointment  with the political situation in the country that you live in, people are disappointed  and discouraged. Number three failure, people need comfort because they fail.  By the way, if you try anything, you're going to fail. Taking classes at Christian  leaders Institute, you've probably taken a quiz or two and didn't do very well.  And maybe the quiz wasn't very good. Or maybe you miss something or you just didn't understand it, you're going to fail. But when you do, it sort of takes the  motivation right out of you. You work hard towards something and then it fails  your work at a at a work thing. You're trying to make money and the thing ends  up failing and you end up losing money, you fail in a relationship, you fail. Being  able to use your gifts where God calls you failure takes your motivation away,  and you need someone to come along with strength. Number four, sickness and death. Nothing takes the will to live and the enthusiasm that you have to do  whatever it is that you want to do in life than sickness and ultimately, death. And  death close to you. Yesterday, I just went to a funeral. My my sister in law's  brother in law. Good man godly man got cancer. It's been battling with it for a  year. And finally, last Tuesday, they had to say goodbye to him. And then when 

you go to a funeral, at least in our culture, people will have storyboards and  pictures of when they were young and when they got married and and here they are with their grandkids and here They are on vacation. And here they are being  goofy with something. And I sat and just looked at that board for about five  minutes. And you can see a whole person's life and now they're gone. And now,  a woman is a widow. And children, one of the children got up and spoke, and  they don't have a father that they can go and talk to anymore. These kinds of  people need comfort, they need someone to come along and communicate  something that gives them strength, because the strength has been sapped out  of them. Number five, loss grief. That's what I've been talking about grief. The  loss is not just the loss of people. That's one kind of grief, but it's really the loss  of anything. My knee has been giving me trouble. And I'm 62 years old, and I  can't play sports. Like I used to, I'm losing that. I used to have this big head of  hair. I mean, it was curly and went all over the place. And it went away. When I  look in the mirror, I see what I've lost. It's hard to lose anything. In the beginning  of life, you're gaining, you're gaining knowledge, you're gaining friends, you're  getting opportunities, you're gaining skills, and so on. But second half life, you  watch some of the things that you gain, go away. And that's painful. And you  need someone to come along and give you strength. Again, come  communicating with strength. Well, what to avoid. Before we talk about what you can do to communicate comfort, I want to talk about what you should avoid if  you want to give people comfort. Number one, avoid avoiding people that are  hurting. One of the things that people do someone someone's hurting, someone  has a bad report from the hospital, maybe they just found out they have cancer,  or someone close to them dies. And a lot of people will avoid the hurting person. And they do so because they don't know what to say. Or they're afraid that what  they say will do more harm than good. So they just avoid the person all together. Avoid avoiding the person that's hurting. Number two, avoid giving advice. First,  people avoid the person that's hurting. But if they don't, they come into contact  with them. A lot of times the tendency is to give advice. Oh, you know what? It  hurts right now, but, but later on, it will be okay. Or what I think you need to do is  just keep busy. So you got all this advice for someone? And what do you what  do you really know about how they feel and what they need and here you're  telling them what they should do? Number three, avoid one upping their story. I  see this happen all the time. Someone has cancer, am so sorry, cancer, you  know, my uncle had cancer. And this is what happened with him. And you tell  this big long story about your uncle's cancer. The person that just found out that  they have cancer doesn't care about hearing a story about your uncle. Or, you  know, you know, I to experience this and I mean, there's a place for that. But it  certainly isn't the first thing that you do. You don't want to up their story they're  hurting their story is the worst story in the world. Their issue their problem, do  what they're feeling about the whole thing is the whole world to them. And so for 

you to tell your story like well, I was really hurting you think you're hurting? Let  me tell you about hurting. Avoid one upping their story. Number four. Avoid pat  answers and false assurances. Maybe you don't know what the word pat answer means. But it's, it seems like it's formulaic kind of answers. Someone has died.  And so you go, Hey, I'm really sorry that this person died. But remember, they're  in heaven, and they're dancing right now. And they're before God and the  angels. Now that might be true. But right now that person is perhaps sad, and  they need to maybe just be in a sad place. And you're like trying, it's like, you  know, what you're suddenly communicating is you shouldn't feel bad. It's wrong  for you to feel bad because your loved one is in heaven. So cheer up. Stop  crying when the person that has lost someone, yeah, they're in heaven, but I  don't have them anymore. But there's a certain sadness to this. Jesus to wept,  when he found out his friend was in the grave, and they told him about it. And  even though he was going to raise him from the dead, the Scripture tells us that  Jesus wept, there's some still something sad about it, that people need to have  the freedom to be sad, so don't come in and, you know, all of a sudden, either  trying to fix the situation, welll their in heaven, or, or you know, a person has  cancer, you know, you just pray, God will heal you, God will heal. And maybe  God will. But we all die eventually. So at some point, God does not heal us. So  avoid these, these pat answers and false assurances. What do what to do  before you speak? Okay, this whole thing is about how to communicate comfort,  but there are things that you have to do before you start communicating your  comfort. Number one, show up. Again, people tend to avoid people that are  hurting because they're afraid of doing the wrong thing, saying the wrong thing.  Or not knowing what to say at all. And we'll talk about what to say. But the first  thing is you have to show up. Just showing up is most of the work. Last week, I  preached the book of Job, Job has everything. And then he loses everything.  And he's sitting on a pile of ashes. And his three friends show up. And they see  their friend Job, and they hardly recognize him, he's lost so much weight. And  they are so grieved. They're so affected by their, their friend, Job, that they sit on the ash pile, to, they strip their clothes off, and throw ashes on their head to be  like, their friend. And then the scripture says that they sat with him for seven  days, without saying a word. In that story, by the way, that is the one thing that  his three friends did, right? They sat and didn't say, a thing. Show up. Number  two, when you do say something, express sympathy. I'm sorry, that this  happened to you. I'm sorry, for your loss, you don't have to go into a big long  thing. That's all you need to say, I'm sorry for your loss, and then stop talking. In  the book of Job his friends, sit for them for seven days without saying anything,  but then they start talking. And they're trying to figure out why these bad things  have happened to Job. And they can't see any other explanation other than the  Job must have done something. Job, you must have done something that  offended God because God would never allow all these things to happen in your

life. If you didn't see, you gotta confess, you gotta find that thing that you've  done. And so they blame Job for the problems in his life. You know, we have  problems too. And people around you have problems. Sometimes it's their fault,  and sometimes it's not, but it's not your job to judge them. Come along, and just  express your sympathy. I'm sorry that this happened to you. I'm sorry that you're going through this. It hurts me to see that you're hurt. Number three. Listen,  instead of going on and trying to explain the thing and trying to make them feel  better. You need to listen first. I'm sorry that this thing happened to you. It hurts  me to see you hurt, stop talking. And if they don't want to talk, then you sit in  silence. And maybe they do want to talk and then they start talking. They start  telling you how they feel. Your job is to listen. And don't quickly you know when  they stop talking quick dive in there and try to fix their problem. Your job is to  listen. And when you listened listen more. Number four, how do you listen? You  can listen with your ears, but sometimes you have to listen with your mouth and  how you do that as you ask questions. They tell you this is what happened. This  is and people like to tell you if you know someone close to them dies, they want  to tell you what happened. They want to tell you this, you know what happened  on day three and day four and Day Five is that they want to give you all these  details. It's very cathartic. They want to walk through the road. And so ask  questions and then help them tell their story. And then, at some point, you might  I mean, this is after you've listened that they've told a lot of the story, you might  ask something like, how do you feel right now? Or how did you feel then? And  that gets some of the emotions out on the table, but don't fix it. Just listening and asking questions that encourage them to keep talking. To cathartically get things out? That alone is giving comfort. Then, when you start speaking, okay, so if  you've listened long enough, you cared long enough, they know that you know  how they feel, because you listen to them. I know you think you know how they  feel, and maybe you do, but they don't know that, you know, until you listened  long enough to what they say, I can't, I can't reiterate this enough. You have to  listen, you have to say things that only get them to speak more so that you can  listen more and after a whole huge load of listening. Can you then give  something to them? Scripture is a beautiful thing to give one of my favorite  verses and all the Bible to give people Deuteronomy 31:8. Can I share this  verse with you? This verse has always been comforting to me. The Lord Himself goes before you in this situation. And he will be with you. Whether you feel it or  you don't feel it. He will never leave you or forsake you. Do not be afraid, do not  be discouraged. That verse was first given to me by an elder when I became a  pastor, the Lord Himself goes before you and will be with you. He will never  leave you or forsake you do not be afraid. Do not be discouraged. It was a great  verse to give a young pastor just starting out. And that was a great comfort in my life. After four years, I went to Vancouver to plant a church. The church went  really well after year four the associate pastor at our church, took some of our 

people to plant his own church. But he needed to get he needed to be ordained.  And so we had an ordination service. I had to give him a verse and so I decided  I'm gonna give him the same verse that was given me Deuteronomy 31:8, The  Lord himself goes before you, He will be with you. He will never leave you or  forsake you. Do not be afraid, do not be discouraged. And off he went. Two  years later, we had another guy, take some of our people and go plant a church,  he needed an ordination. So I gave him the same verse. When I came to my  current church, we have an associate pastor who needed to be ordained, I gave  him the same verse, the Lord Himself goes before you. He will be with you will  never leave you or forsake you do not be afraid, do not be discouraged. It gave  comfort to me. And now I'm using to give comfort and strength to someone else.  Well, that original elder that gave me that verse got cancer. This was a few  years back. And my wife and I went to meet him and his wife, for the last time he was, he had cancer, he was dying. It wasn't going to be long. And we visited him and we talked and we reminisce. And at the end, you know, now we're saying  goodbye for at least this side of heaven. And I remember standing up saying,  Well, it's time to go, but before I do, I want to give you something. And I open up  my Bible, and I said 25 years ago, you gave me this verse, when I got ordained.  And it's been a great verse. And I told them where that verse went, and how I  use that verse in my ministry. And then I said, it's been a good verse and I thank  you for it. But I want to give you this verse back. Because the Lord Himself goes before you and He will be with you. He will never leave you or forsake you do  not be afraid. I know you have cancer, and you're looking at death. Do not be  afraid, and do not be discouraged. It's a powerful, powerful verse. Psalm 23,  often used at the time of death, even though I walk through the valley of the  shadow of death, I will fear no evil, and very interesting in Psalm 23 starts out  talking about God. But all of a sudden, when this valley of the shadow of death  part comes in, all of a sudden, the writer is talking to God, I will fear no, I will not  fear for thou art with me. You God are with me. That's what people need to  know. When they're hurting, when they're discouraged, when their grief filled.  They've lost things. They want to know that God is there so communicate things  that reassure them that God is there. II Kings 6:8-17 not going to read the whole thing, right? It's the story of Elisha and the king of Aram is trying to destroy the  king of Israel. And Elisha keeps telling the king of Israel, where the king of Aram  is with his troops. And so finally the king of Aram wants to kill Elisha. Let's, let's  kill this thing at the source. So one morning, Elisha's servant gets up out of bed,  and he walks out of that he's gonna you know, a coffee in one hand, he's got  he's got a croissant in the other. Or maybe a doughnut. How about a doughnut.  Maybe a maple doughnut with some chocolate on it and coconut things all over.  That might be good. Or maybe a scone. How about a scone with with  blueberries on it. A little cream cheese in it. What was I talking about? Oh yeah,  Elisha's servant. He steps out of the little place that they're staying. And he sees

the armies of Aram surrounding him. They gotta have they went by night  surrounded the city when the servant of the man of God got up and went out  early the next morning and army with horses and chariots had surrounded the  city. Oh no, my lord, what shall we do the servant asked. Don't be afraid the  Prophet answered those who are with us are more than those who are with  them. Elisha prayed, open his eyes, Lord, so that he may see. Then the Lord  opened the servant's eyes and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and  chariots of fire all around Elisha. I want to get a pen here a minute. And maybe  Wally, if you could zoom in on this pen. You see this pen? This ordinary pen,  pretty firm. The watch, watch me bend it. Can you see that? Man, it's just an  ordinary pen. But looks like it's bending. a lot of times in life. What we go by is  seeing is believing. You have to see something, and then you will believe it. But  seeing is believing doesn't always work. If you see the pen bending, but it  actually isn't, it's an optical illusion. So a lot of times people discount Christianity, because they can't see God. Elisha's servant couldn't see God's armies, all he  could see is what was against him. And that's true for a lot of people. What they  see is the thing that has just happened. They see the losses from the human  point of view. Job sees that he loses everything. But he doesn't see that by just  hanging in there. He actually is defeating Satan in a different in another realm.  That hanging in there. Even sitting there on the ash pile is like giving a black eye to the devil. So we don't always see what's going we don't see the real picture.  And so people need to understand that well. Tat what hey're going through is  just one part of the picture, but they don't see what what is really happening. So  hang, hang in there. John 11:25-27, Jesus said to her, this is the sister to his  friend Lazarus and Lazarus had died three days before. Jesus said to her, I am  the resurrection and the life, the one who believes in me will live even though he died. And the one that lives believing me will never die. And the Jesus asked the question, that we really need to ask everyone, do you believe this? At some  point, people need to be challenged, even people that are hurting, do you  believe this? That's what it's about. If you believe this, then you have the  strength. To remember what is comfort, it's bringing a message with strength,  the strength of Jesus's resurrection. And the possibility of our own resurrection is what we ultimately need to communicate to people. II Corinthians 4:16-18, Paul  says, We do not lose heart. Though outwardly, we're wasting away, yet inwardly  we are being renewed day by day for our light and momentary troubles. In the  scheme of all creation, in the history of the whole world, what we're going  through is life, it's temporary. our light and momentary troubles are achieving for  us in eternal glory that far outweighs them all. Again, Job didn't think he was  accomplishing anything, he's sitting on an ash pile, and he's complaining, and  he's got friends who don't believe in him. And his wife even says, Why don't you  just get done with it and die. But he doesn't know that just hanging in there is  defeating the devil, creating a victory in in the spiritual realm. And you don't 

understand it just you hanging in there. Maybe you don't even think you know,  you're, you see other people accomplishing great things in God's kingdom, and  you're looking at your life and you got, you know, I'm not accomplishing  anything. How do you know, you don't know the things, you maybe have more  things that you have to go against. And just by hanging in there, you're giving  the block that you're giving a black eye to the devil, that you're winning a victory  that you're not even aware. So we fix our eyes, not on what is seen. We see the  armies aounnd us. Don't fix your eyes not on what is seen. But on what is  unseen, the armies of God, the angels, the chariots of fire, since what is seen is  temporary, and what is unseen, is eternal. So tying people into the eternal Now  you don't want to preach at people with this. You want to agree with them with  this. Okay? If they're Christians, you just come alongside, Hey, isn't it awesome  that we have this? And it's just gently reminding them where their real hope is? If they're not Christians, then you really need to walk with them. Where are you  with this? How are you dealing with this? Let them feel the pain. It's only when  they feel the pain enough that they might be open to an answer to their pain.  John 14:1-3 Jesus said, do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God  believe also in me. My Father's house has many rooms if that were not so I  would have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go  and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me. That  you also may be where I am. And I love watching documentaries,  documentaries. I was just in Mount Vernon to home, Washington, George  Washington. And, you know, in that museum there, they show what he did, you  know his life and, you know, towards the end he had 55,000 acres of land all  over the United States. I didn't know that. He had a false teeth made out of  wood. Very interesting. Okay. So you watch these documentaries about all these famous famous people and you know How every documentary ends. The  person dies. It doesn't matter what you accomplished, or how famous you are,  you end up dying. That's the ultimate thing that takes our strength away. So  communicating the resurrection, communicating that right now, there's a place  that God is preparing for us that this home is not our home. We were made for  something greater. That's the ultimate comfort that you can give someone.  Share comforting stories, a faith that was restored a person who towards the  end of his life, comes back to the Lord. And maybe that's what someone needs  to hear Or marriages that have been rekindled. In several people in my church,  I have one guy who, who got a divorce, and a year later got remarried. In fact, I  have two couples like that. Those are great stories to tell, because it gives hope  it gives comfort to someone who can only see the brokenness. Jobs that were  found, prodigals that came home, you know, a son, or a daughter that went  away for so many years. But then they came back. And that is possible for your  son or your daughter too. Sicknesses that were healed. Share comforting  stories, share word pictures, Max Lucado was a great author. Anything that he's 

written is worth reading, he shares the story of when his father died. And his  father couldn't speak, that he had ALS. He couldn't move, he couldn't speak.  And he was just a hollow shallow of himself. And, and his mom said, Max, your  father wants to talk to you. He couldn't talk. But that's what she said. And so he  goes there and he looks in his eyes. And his father is trying to say something.  And this is what, what Max Lucado got out of the eyes, that his father, he  recognized the eyes and what they were trying to say. And he, he took back to a  story when he was a child. He wanted to jump off the high dive into a pool. And  his father went first and jumped in. And then he was looking up at his son. And  he was saying to his son, come on. It's gonna be okay. It's gonna be okay. And  his father looked his son in the eye. And the eyes communicated to the son that  it's going to be okay. So he jumped and Max said, that's the eyes that I was  looking into those same eyes, those same eyes. Were saying that the son that  the father at the end was saying to the Son, it's going to be okay. It's going to be  okay. That's what people need to hear that it's going to be okay. Doesn't look like it's going to be okay. But it's going to be okay. Because the father is going to  make it so your heavenly Father is going to make it. So what you're going  through right now, I don't know what you're going through right now. I don't know what losses you're experiencing, or what trouble you're, you've gone through or  what disappointments or discouragement. But I can tell you this. If Jesus is your  savior, it is going to be okay. Share a little comfort before a challenge. People  need to know that you care before they accept your challenge. People need to  have their pain in past failure and disappointment acknowledged before you  accept your challenge. People need to be built up before you can accept any  judge No, I'm getting into the next lecture. But I just wanted to give you a little  hint of what's to come. Because a lot of times we challenge people, but what  they need first is comfort. What is comfort is communicating with strength. What  do you need to do before you do that? Listen. So today my assignment to you.  Who in your world that meet who needs comfort? Who in your world have you  been avoiding because they're hurting? Do something about it today we'll see  you next time.