Paul writes to the church in Rome: "Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn." It sits inside a longer passage about love in action โ sincere love, honouring one another, sharing with those in need. This is not a stand-alone proverb about being nice. It is a command about presence, and it is expensive.
Both halves of the verse require the same thing: you have to be there. Joy and grief cannot be shared from a distance. They require an actual person, in an actual room, willing to enter someone else's life. You cannot rejoice with someone through a message you meant to send. You cannot mourn with someone by scrolling past their news and resolving to call later.
Here is the quiet irony of adult life. We are surrounded by contacts and starved for company. We know what people post. We don't always know what they carry. Between the commute, the deadlines, the ageing parent who needs us, and the ordinary weight of keeping a household running, friendship quietly becomes a thumbs-up on a photograph. We mean to call. We have meant to call for months.
Romans 12:15 asks two things our culture is especially bad at. First, rejoice with those who rejoice โ without envy, without qualifiers, without the small tightening in the chest when a friend receives the good thing you had hoped for. That is the test. Second, mourn with those who mourn โ without rushing to fix it, explain it, or move the conversation along. A grieving friend rarely needs a solution. They need someone who will stay.
Alvin Kang's testimony shows what this looks like in ordinary life. Cindy did not hand her brother a slogan and walk away. She spent four hours with him, talking about the meaning of life, and then invited him to church. When he arrived, the welcome continued: a church friend formed a spiritual friendship group with him and learned alongside him. That is rejoicing and mourning made practical โ not a feeling, but a presence. You can offer that today, in a small and manageable form.
๐ซFriendship
The Friend Who Stays to Listen
God made us for real company โ and real friendship is worth a phone call.
October 18, 20266 min readNIV
Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.
โ Romans 12:15 (NIV)
Love in action
Today's Story
๐True Story
Alvin Kang was seventeen, a polytechnic student in Singapore, and lonely. A heartache and some broken friendships had left him that way, and the loneliness settled under the ordinary rhythm of his days.
He had grown up in a family that practiced another faith, but his older sister, Cindy, was a Christian, and she had often spoken with him about what she believed. He had listened the way you listen to something that isn't yet yours.
Then came the night the two of them spent four hours discussing the meaning of life. Before it was over, Cindy invited him to Church of Our Saviour.
He went. What he found there was not what he had braced for. Not fire, not pressure โ a peace he did not expect, and a strange familiarity, as if he had stepped into a room he somehow already knew. He came back the following week. And when the altar call came, he responded.
That was not the end of the story. He and a friend from the church formed a spiritual friendship group, reading Christian books and learning side by side. Alvin was baptised in April 2018. In 2023, he became a youth cell-group leader.
The years after took on a settled shape. Once he had graduated from polytechnic and completed National Service, he worked as a barista. Then he undertook a one-year church internship, and after that, he became a full-time youth worker โ leading activities and cell groups, and helping create a safe community for young people. The same kind of community that had received him.
Somewhere in that long conversation between a brother and a sister, the loneliness began to turn. Cindy did not hand him a message and move on. She stayed in the conversation for hours. She gave him an invitation. And God used both โ a sister who would not let the conversation end early, a church that welcomed him, a friend who learned alongside him โ to meet a young man at the exact point where he had run out of answers.
SOURCE: In search of meaning in life, a lonely teen stepped into church and found it so familiar he stayed and became a youth worker (Salt&Light, 2026) / https://saltandlight.sg/faith/in-search-for-meaning-in-life-a-lonely-teen-stepped-into-church-and-found-it-so-familiar-he-stayed-and-became-a-youth-worker/
Source citation: In search of meaning in life, a lonely teen stepped into church and found it so familiar he stayed and became a youth worker (Salt&Light, 2026) / https://saltandlight.sg/faith/in-search-of-meaning-in-life-a-lonely-teen-stepped-into-church-and-found-it-so-familiar-he-stayed-and-became-a-youth-worker/
Reflection
Think About It
โข Who is one person you have been meaning to reach out to for months? Name the reason you have not called yet, and name the call you could make this week. โข When someone you love is grieving, does your instinct lead you to fix the problem or to sit with them inside it? What would it look like to simply stay? โข Is there a friend whose good news you have quietly failed to celebrate? What would it cost you to rejoice with them fully?
Prayer
Father, thank You for friends who stay โ for a sister who talked with her brother into the night, for a church that welcomed a lonely young man, for a friendship that began with books and grew into faith. Thank You for making us for company, and for the friend who sticks closer than a brother. Thank You that You never leave us alone.
Lord, make me that kind of friend โ one who rejoices without envy and mourns without hurry, one who shows up rather than merely means to. Slow me down when I want to fix, and lift my eyes when I want to look away. Let my presence be the small, faithful thing You use in someone else's life.
All glory to You, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Live It Out
Reach out today to one friend with a specific invitation, not just "let's catch up." Name a day, a time, and a place โ coffee after church on Sunday, a walk on Saturday morning, a phone call at 8 p.m. on Thursday. Specificity is what turns intention into presence. And if a friend is in a hard season, don't wait for them to ask; offer the time yourself.