All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is our merciful Father and the source of all comfort. He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us.
(2 Corinthians 1:3-4 NLT)
Do you long for comfort? I don’t mean a plushy pillow. I mean soul-deep encouragement. Are your troubles weighing heavily on you and you wish someone would say or do something—anything, that would be a balm for your pain?
Where Can I Find Comfort?
The Bible tells us that God is the source of all comfort. This is not just any god, but “God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
We read elsewhere in the Bible that “this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16 NLT). God had compassion on sinners. He planned to rescue us from our sin so that we might be saved from his just wrath and brought into a loving relationship with him through the death and resurrection of his Son, Jesus. Those who trust in Jesus are reconciled to God (1 Peter 3:18) and brought into his family as his children (John 1:12).
Listen to this sweet expression of God’s heart for his children: “Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else?” (Romans 8:32). God delights to provide for his children, and one thing he promises to provide is comfort.
Paul writes that God comforts his children in all their troubles. There is no trouble you will face without the comfort of God, if you are his child by faith in Jesus. There is no trouble too small to receive God’s comfort or too long to outlast God’s comfort. There are no troubles too stubborn for God’s comfort to penetrate.
How Does God Comfort Us?
But we may wonder how God comforts us in our troubles. The Bible gives us an answer. Let’s think about 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 and what it teaches us about God’s process of providing comfort.
God, it says, is the source of all comfort. He comforts us. Did you catch in the verse why God comforts us? “He comforts us…so that we can comfort others.” Here’s how we comfort others: “When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us.”
When a child of God walks through a specific trouble or hardship, God comforts them. That child has a particular experience of the comfort of God now that they can share with others. Another trouble befalls them. Again, God sends particular comfort for that sorrow. They now have another experience of God’s comfort. And so continues the steady stream of God’s comfort for our pain for the rest of our lives.
What does God want us to do with those experiences of his comfort? Pass them on to others.
The troubles you walk through equip you with comfort from God to share with others who are walking through similar troubles. This is a wonderful thought in and of itself, but I want to direct your attention to what this says about God’s people.
Where Can I Expect to Find Comfort?
Based on this verse, God’s children are storehouses of God’s comfort! Each child of God has received comfort from God that they can apply to others.
This tells us as believers that one of the ways God will comfort us in our troubles is through other believers in Jesus. God will comfort us with “second-hand” comfort—comfort he has first given to one of his other children, which then he will move them to share with us.
When we are in trouble, this truth encourages us to draw near to our brothers and sisters in Christ. Pick up the phone and call your Christian friend, go to youth group, choose to go to church, attend that Bible study, or read that book written by a Christian in a hard time. Seek out other believers in Jesus when you are in trouble—God has comfort waiting for you in their presence.
May God’s Word today open your eyes to the blessing of your brothers and sisters in Christ, and may you be encouraged to draw near to them in your troubles in faith that God has comfort waiting for you.