Breaking Life Clichés

Have you ever had a friend, or even a stranger, telling you about their sufferings and you didn't know what to tell them, so you used one of life clichès? 

How about a time when you were struggling with something and another person used one of them with you?

I bet it didn't help. Truth is they do not make the situation better, so why do people use them? We think that because we went through similar circumstances we are subject matter experts. But, did we even learned the lesson we were supposed to?

When I was going through the process of being discharged from the military, I was angry, confused and scared. It didn’t help that people were using life clichès like: “well, maybe the military wasn’t for you” or “Maybe you’ll find your calling now”.

Listen!!, I was not being discharged cause I couldn’t do my job, I was injured and ignored myself for years... when I worsen they gave me a lot of money and showed me the door (so much for service before self, Air Force!!). Being discharged was not a matter of me missing my calling. In fact, I have no doubt God was using all of that to place me where I needed to be for my calling.

Simply put, life clichès are not helpful!! 

Think, how do you feel when it’s you on the receiving end of these: 

“maybe it wasn’t meant to be” (thanks, now I’m not heartbroken anymore)

“the only thing you can do is pray” (geez!, thanks, it never crossed my mind that I could do that)

“life can only get better” (this conversation proves otherwise)

“at least you know it’s a close door” (it’s taking all my self-control to not close my door, on your face)

“it wasn’t God’s plan” (and you know what God’s plans are? please, do tell)

“there’s people that are in worst situations” (is that even suppose to make me feel better?!)

“You may have to confess a secret sin” (you mean my desire to punch you in the face, right?)

“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” (great! Let me try my new strength by actually punching you in the face)

“Everything will workout at the end” (THIS IS NOT A HALLMARK MOVIE PEOPLE!!! You don’t know that!!!!)

But the one I dislike the most is the misused of Romans 8:28 and Jeremiah 29:11: 
           “you know, everything works together for good. God is in your side” & “God has plans of prosperity for you”(Are you kidding me!?, have you ever really read that passage?)

Defeating this habit is not easy. Even I have been guilty of it. It takes an intentional mindset to learn what God is teaching us through life circumstances, to then be able to comfort others. I do believe we go through life struggles to be able to empathize and sympathize with others. Scripture is clear about in 2 Corinthians 1:3-4:
            "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the  Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God" ourselves are comforted by God".
But if we don’t learn the lesson, then we don’t have anything to give, and worse, chances are we're gonna be in that situation again (yes, I am talking from experience, but am I wrong?). 

When it’s you in the hot chair, would you like to hear those things? No, no you do not.

Here’s some ways I have found useful when I’m in diverse trials to help me -one, learn what God is teaching me; and two, learn how to better help others when the go through the same.

1. Ask God to reveal you what He’s trying to teach you: it is that easy, God wants us to ask Him for the answers, but we don’t ask, nor we believe. “And all things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive.” (Matthew 21:22). God is always teaching us something through our trials. Whether it is “don’t do it again” or “you will use this for my glory”, He wants us to learn, grow and mature as a person and as a Christian. Unless we ask Him to help us figure out, we won’t.
2. Think of what would you like to hear from your friends and family: nobody likes to hear the clichès, the problem is that nobody knows what else to say. We try to be helpful but we forget that in the midst of the hurt our brain ability to think logically is gone. So, saying certain things (however accurate) will not help. If during our pain we focus on what we would like to hear, we would develop better comfort skills.
3. Repeat steps 1 & 2 as a third person: In other words, when you are the one comforting others and want to say something ask God to show you what He’s trying to teach them and to tell you what to say. Now, in case you didn’t know, you don’t always have to say something. There is such thing as comforting other through you presence alone. At times words are useless and meaningless, they will not solve anything and all we need is someone to be there and listen to us. 

No, not every trial is a test. Some of the things we go through are mere consequences of the stupid decisions we make. We can, though, learn a lot from them -like how to not make the same or similar mistakes.

If you read the book of Job you will pray you don’t get friends like that. Where they wrong about what they were saying? No, they merely quoted proverbs they possibly heard their entire life. 

Was what they said applicable? Not even close!, they were applying the proverbs as absolute principles. For a generation that loves the “gray area” or the “happy mediums” we still seem to think that everyone is suffering because they did something wrong, yet when it’s us, then it’s just the unfairness of life and we want mercy. 

Let me challenge you to give mercy. If all of us drop the life clichès and use comfort skill clothed with mercy, we will have plenty of the same when it's our turn.