I remember when I first moved to Birmingham. I didn’t know anyone. I didn’t have any friends. No family. I was overwhelmed at the size of the city compared to the little town I had just moved from and grown up in my whole life. Everything was new, and quiet honestly, pretty scary for me. To complicate matters, I was insecure and shy, which made it hard for me to make friends. So, I began to pray for God to send a friend. At that time, I was renting a room from a guy about ten years older than me. He and I were really different in our interests and I did not even consider him as a possibility for friendship. The more I was around him, the more our differences stuck out to me.
Fast – forward 10 years. He has become one of my best friends and has influenced positive change & temendous growth in my life. During that difficult time of feeling all alone and estranged from everything familiar to me, God "comforted" me with a great friend and used our differences as sort of a catalyst for personal growth in so many good ways.
Since that time, and because of the difficulty I went through after moving to a new place where I knew no one, I now have a heightened awareness of and compassion for people in similar situations. For example, I find myself wanting people who are new to this country to feel welcomed, people new to my place of employment, or new to Birmingham, or even new to a room of gathered people. I go out of my way to make people feel welcomed and comfortable because I remember my own struggle and draw from the healing God provided for me.
I imagine you have found yourself in a situation where you needed some comfort. Maybe your difficulty wasn’t friendship. Perhaps someone very close to you passed away. Or, maybe you and your spouse experienced some marital struggles. For some of you, it could be that your child rebelled against seemingly everything you ever taught them. Perhaps for others, you lost your job and faced difficult financial strain.
The truth is that all of us, no one excluded, have faced things in life where we needed God’s comfort and help. Afterwards, I am sure you can remember experiencing an increase in compassion for others in similar situations. Well, that is exactly what God intended to happen. There’s nothing that helps us to understand the hurt and pain of others better than when we have gone through the same thing ourselves. Now, let’s look at what God says about this.
2 Corinthians 1:3-5 “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.”
Paul teaches us that God has 2 powerful purposes in our trouble:
1.) God wants us to experience His comfort.
2.) God wants to make us comfortors to others.
God wants us to experience His compassion and comfort in all of our problems so that we are empowered to show that same compassion and comfort to others experiencing similar problems. God comforts us, not to make us comfortable, but to make us comforters!
In fact, Hebrews 2:17,18 states that Jesus is able to help us in all of our troubles because he has suffered in the same ways. Verse 17 says that Jesus is “merciful” which means that He is compassionate towards me in my troubles because he faced them too. The same verse also states that he is “faithful” which means I can count on him to help me because he has not only faced the same things, but overcame them. He cares because he knows, and he is able to help because he has overcome!
From now on, when you see your spouse or your child, a co-worker or boss, a brother or sister in Christ, or even a stranger, going through something GOD has helped you through, remember, God didn’t comfort you, just to make you comfortable, but to make you a comforter to others. You are comforted to comfort! Remember how God helped you and now you help them. Let them know what God did for you. What God did for you is what they need too
Imagine with me for just a moment. Envision what a difference we could make if we all began to allow God to comfort us in all of our trouble and then became the comforter to others that God intends for us to be.
Our Father of compassion, the God of all comfort, is calling us to be comforters. What area of your life do you need to experience Gods comfort? Who around you needs the compassion and comfort God has given you?
