Comforting, as God Comforts Us

 

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 have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. 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. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.

—2 Corinthians 1:3-7

Does Louis Armstrong’s rendition of “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen’ resonate with you? Please watch this video clip and think about how you react to it.

Unless you are quite unusual, you’ve known some trouble in your life. Maybe you have suffered through the death of a spouse, or a child, or some other loved one. Maybe you have experienced a debilitating disease. Maybe your life’s partner has abandoned you for someone else. Maybe people you counted on and thought were your friends have turned their backs on you. Maybe you have seen your career tumble into shambles because someone at work decided to treat you unfairly. Maybe you have watched your financial security evaporate in a falling stock market, or a bad investment scheme of some kind. Maybe you’ve allowed some pattern of addiction to take you down.

I just don’t know what you have experienced in your life. But, I know this for sure: we’ve all had afflictions in our lives and we’ve had trials in our lives. For what purpose does God allow troubles to come into our lives? Have we ever considered that He may allow these trials in order to teach us that we can rely on His grace to see us through?

Even more startling, have we considered that God may allow difficulties in our lives so that we can receive His comfort and, thus, learn how to extend His comfort to others?

In the Scripture passage at the beginning of this blog post, it seems as if the Apostle Paul shares this very concept with the Christians at Corinth. He writes,

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 have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows.

Imagine that! When God comforts us in our trouble, He also teaches us how to extend His comfort to the people who cross the pathway of our lives and who need His comfort, too. This puts all kinds of difficulties into an entirely different perspective.

No one wants to have troubles assail his or her life. But, to experience the comfort from God, and to learn how to pass that comfort on to others, seems like something we should consider the next time we find some troubles busting into our lives.

 

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