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 all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer.
2 Corinthians 1:3-6
We all have hard things to deal with in our lives. Some of you may be going through something right now or maybe you just walked through a difficult time. Even as Christians we go through times that are very difficult, seem unfair, and leave us asking “Why me?”.
There have been a few things that I have walked through that were very difficult and unique to me and my family. They were not easy at all but later I was able to look back on them and see that the verse above is true. Because I experienced these things I was able to comfort others going through the same thing. Helping comfort another person was a blessing to me and glorified God. It is nice to think that God can be glorified through insignificant me.
While reading 2 Corinthians and studying about Paul I realized that even Paul, a devout Christian, relentless follower of Christ, and probably the best preacher of all time suffered. He was chased, imprisoned, tortured, beaten, and lonely - just to name a few. Yet, he had joy in Christ and continued to follow God, no matter what the cost. (2 Corinthians 2:7)
Even Christ could not go without suffering. He was sent by God to earth to experience what we go through every day. He was tempted, experienced loss, suffered a broken heart, and was crucified. He experienced these things so that he can comfort us and through that comfort God can be glorified. We truly have a God that understands what we are going through.
You are given the chance to comfort people in your day to day life. Each of us is given the opportunity to comfort our children, our friends, our spouses, and our co-workers. Everyone has different and similar burdens. Everyone is seeking comfort.
We can learn a lot from Paul: “He praises God for the circumstances of his life even though there are afflictions. He calls God the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort. He sees God's hand as having sent these things into his life; therefore, he doesn't pray to have them removed so that he might escape from them. He sees them as opportunities for the release of the strength of God.” (excerpt from www.raystedman.org)
The only real comfort you can give to others is the comfort you can receive in Christ. How authentic is your comfort to others? Is it based on comfort received from God? How do you accept comfort from others?
Other Scriptures about comfort
Isaiah 66:13 As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you; and you will be comforted over Jerusalem.
Philippians 2:1-4 Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then made my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of other.
Matthew 5:4 Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
By Sarah Lyons
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