A Few Thoughts On Comfort

The Apostle Paul, perhaps the greatest evangelist in church history, wrote two epistles to the church at Corinth. Corinth had a reputation of being the sin city of its day, and the Corinthian Christians endured extraordinary pressures from their surroundings. In this most personal of Paul’s letters, he begins by stating in verses 3 and 4, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort that we ourselves are comforted by God.”

Now that’s a mouthful, a long run-on sentence that is Paul’s style. Neverthe- less, he tells believers in the Corinthian church that before they could possibly minister comfort effectively to others, they must first have experienced comfort from God. It is the same with us. He goes on to say that our consolation abounds in direct proportion to the sufferings of Christ that abound in us. With that in mind, it occurs to me that suffering tribulation in our lives is not necessarily all bad. If, as Paul states in Romans 8:28, that all things are working together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose, then even the perceived setbacks in our day-to-day lives have a positive purpose. We are being prepared through adversity to bring comfort to our brothers and sisters.

Who welcomes disappointing and difficult times? Not me, that’s for sure. But it does help me to avoid the most common response to adversity, even among Christians: “Why me, Lord?”