Several years ago, after a difficult congregational meeting, I sat alone in an empty church parking lot long after everyone else had gone home.
The meeting itself had not been dramatic. No one shouted. No one stormed out. Yet as I sat there staring at the darkened church building, I found myself replaying conversations in my mind.
Had I listened carefully enough?
Gregory C. Smith
Had I said too much?
Not enough?
Would the decisions we made ultimately help people?
The questions lingered long after the meeting ended.
At the time, I assumed this was simply part of ministry. Pastors, chaplains, caregivers and other helping professionals spend much of their lives living with uncertainty. We accompany people through situations we cannot fix and suffering we cannot fully understand.
Over the years, however, I began noticing something.
“Pastors, chaplains, caregivers and other helping professionals spend much of their lives living with uncertainty.”
Many of the most meaningful moments in ministry occurred not when someone provided a brilliant answer but when someone simply showed up.
I learned this lesson repeatedly in hospital rooms, funeral homes, disaster shelters and congregational crises.
People often imagine ministry as a profession built on answers. We are expected to explain Scripture, offer guidance, interpret circumstances and help people make sense of life. There is certainly value in all those things.
But suffering has a way of exposing the limits of explanation.
What do you say to parents burying a child?
What do you say to a family whose home has just been destroyed by a tornado?
What do you say to someone whose prayers for healing seem to have gone unanswered?
In such moments, explanations often feel painfully inadequate. Presence does not.
I remember sitting with a grieving family before a funeral service. Someone quietly asked, “Why would God allow this?” The room fell silent.
Years earlier, I might have felt pressure to offer a theological answer. Instead, I found myself sitting quietly alongside everyone else.
Finally, another family member spoke: “I don’t know.” Then she added, “But I know we’re here together.”
No one argued. No one attempted to improve the answer. Everyone simply nodded.
“People facing profound suffering often need companionship more than explanation.”
The grief remained. The loss remained. But so did something else: Presence.
That experience has stayed with me because it reflects a truth I have encountered again and again: People facing profound suffering often need companionship more than explanation.
This does not mean theology is unimportant. It does not mean answers never matter. It simply means presence is not a lesser ministry.
Too often, we treat presence as what we offer when we have nothing better to give. We assume real ministry happens through sermons, programs, strategies or solutions. Sitting quietly with a grieving person can feel passive by comparison.
Yet Scripture repeatedly points us in a different direction. Again and again, God’s promise is not, “I will explain everything.” The promise is, “I will be with you.”
The biblical story is filled with people carrying unanswered questions. Job never receives the explanation he seeks. Many of the psalms end with tension still unresolved. The prophets repeatedly cry out in confusion and lament.
Yet God’s presence remains central.
The same pattern appears in ministry.
“One of the greatest gifts we can offer another person is our willingness to remain present when answers are unavailable.”
After years in disaster response, I have become increasingly convinced that one of the greatest gifts we can offer another person is our willingness to remain present when answers are unavailable.
Showing up matters. Listening matters. Remaining matters.
When disaster strikes, volunteers arrive long before solutions are visible. When someone dies, friends gather before grief has been processed. When a congregation faces conflict, faithful people continue showing up even when outcomes remain uncertain.
Presence does not eliminate suffering. It does not answer every question. It does not solve every problem. But it reminds people they do not carry their burdens alone.
In a culture increasingly drawn toward quick opinions and instant explanations, presence may be one of the most countercultural forms of ministry available to us.
It requires patience. Humility. Listening. And the willingness to resist the temptation to fix everything.
Many years ago, I thought effective ministry depended largely on having the right answers. I still believe answers matter. But experience has taught me something else: Some of the most important moments in ministry occur when we stop trying to explain suffering and simply accompany those who are experiencing it.
Sometimes the greatest gift we can offer is not a solution. Sometimes it is ourselves.
That may be one of the most important ministries we have.
Gregory C. Smith is a retired Presbyterian Church (USA) pastor, disaster spiritual care leader and author whose work focuses on moral injury, trauma, grief and faith after catastrophe. He has served with Presbyterian Disaster Assistance National Response Team and the American Red Cross in disaster response and writes widely on theology, suffering and compassionate presence in wounded communities.