February 19
2 Corinthians 1:3-4
3 Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort;
4 Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.
Today my heart hurts. There are people that I love and care for deeply that are facing a hard day. There are troubles and tribulations and trials and hurt. And when people we love hurt, we hurt with them. There is nothing I can do to stop the hurt. There is nothing I can do make the pain go away. So, I sit here with my heart breaking doing the only thing possible---lifting them up to the Lord in prayer.
I have highlighted three distinct parts these verses because I think we need to look at each part separately and then the verse together as a whole. First off we see that God is the only One who can truly comfort us in times of trouble and trials. He is the only one that can give us exactly what we need to face whatever lies ahead. Paul plainly states that God DOES comfort us.
The second part tells us that God comforts us so that we can comfort others. So while I can't take the pain away, I have had a broken heart and I know that God saw me through. I can then offer support and empathy and sympathy to my friends. We are able to provide comfort to others.
And we provide that comfort by the comforting that we receive from God. It is so awesome (and some of you know I only think that word refers to God) to see how God can take something that was hard for us and use it to help us help someone else. I know that God knows ahead of time what we each will face. To me it is a comfort when hard times come to know that one day I can use the love that God showed to me and show it to someone else in need. Even though we don't pray for God to send us trials, we can pray that He will use them to guide us and prepare us for helping someone else.
So, we are able to say "Blessed be God" even on the hardest days. God is the greatest comforter and is willing to give that comfort to us.
(And, if you don't mind, please join me in offering up some prayers for my friends. I would greatly appreciate it.)
As we go through our day today, let us remember that trials can turn into blessings because God is the Comforter.
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