“Words for the Wind”: When Not to Be Theologically Picky

If ever we or a Christian friend or loved one were to say something theologically inaccurate (despite perhaps not really believing what is coming out of one’s mouth), odds are it will be when we are in the grip of tremendous suffering or feeling pain. If this occurs with someone you know, I encourage us not to be overly picky about theological precision in those moments. Your friend may say and feel things that are not theologically accurate. In fact, this often happened with biblical characters as well. For example, consider the Old Testament character Job.

Job asks his friends, “Do you intend to reprove my words, when the words of one in despair belong to the wind?” (Job 6:26) In other words, Job’s three friends were taking him to task for giving voice to his confusion and heartache. They were eager to correct his theology (ironically, it was their theology that made no room for unexplainable suffering). Job points out the folly of their trying to correct him at a time like this. He admits that what is coming out of his mouth is not wholly true, but the words are coming because what he says indicates how life feels. He knows his words won’t stand the test of time (i.e., they “belong to the wind.”).

Pastor John Piper helps us here. He states, “If we had discernment, we could tell the difference between the words with roots and the words blowing in the wind. There are words with roots in deep error and deep evil. But not all grey words get their color from a black heart. Some are colored mainly by the pain, the despair. What you hear is not the deepest thing within. There is something real and dark within where they come from. But it is temporary – like a passing infection – real, painful, but not the true person.”

Echoing Job in a contemporary fashion, the following is what C.S. Lewis said after his wife, Joy, died:

“Meanwhile, where is God? This is one of the most disquieting symptoms. When you are happy, so happy that you have no sense of needing Him, so happy that you are tempted to feel His claims upon you as an interruption, if you remember yourself and turn to Him with gratitude and praise, you will be—or so it feels—welcomed with open arms. But go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence. You may as well turn away….Why is He so present a commander in our time of prosperity and so very absent a help in time of trouble?”

Christian counselor Mike Emlet helps us interact with Lewis’s sentiment. He asks, “Does it make you squirm a bit to listen to those words? Do you fear your friend’s loss of faith? Do you want to jump to God’s defense?... Would you try to sanitize C.S. Lewis’s sorrow and remind him of what he wrote about God in the previous years?” Would we try to “sanitize” our friends’ sorrow? Could we inadvertently be showing that we are so uncomfortable with grief that we would be tempted to censor many of the Psalms, for example, out of the Bible? Before we rush to defend God and ensure our friend’s theology is in order, weep with them. Slow down and consider the person. Is it possible that grey words are coming, but not from a black heart? There may come a time when it is good to overtly remind your friend that God is good, but make sure this is not divorced from weeping with them and showing your care.

This post is the seventh in a series deriving from the “Chronic Pain & Illness” seminar that took place at Rocky Creek in September 2025. If you’d like to receive the PDF note packet and audio version of that seminar, you may email allen@rockycreek.church.