Comfort only in Him

2 Corinthians 1:3-8    Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 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. 5 For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. 6 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. 7 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. 8 We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. (NIV)

Yesterday as I worked on my sermon for this week, I received a message from church about someone who was in the middle of an extremely painful situation. A hurt so deep that it affected anybody that came to know about it; it truly gripped me. In the selfishness side of my position, I am clueless of what to say, to search for words of comfort when there are seemingly none. I worried about me, yet then God opened my heart to her. There is no way I can comprehend, or even begin to understand the pain of a mother. So many questions I cannot answer; big questions that rest in our faith of our Sovereign God. Through all the pain, we must know that He is in control.

In times like this I tend to reflect on how little I am. I think back at the incredible life story of Job; the pawn in a spiritual warfare; the guy who God so loved he let Satan sift him; he rewarded Job greatly for his enduring faith. When Job questioned God, God replied “who are you to question me?” Job’s mind just like ours was limited; we are simple and God is beyond intricate to the highest degree. Isaiah 55:8 “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord. We can never come to understand the plans He has laid out for us. We so many times question the painful trials He allows us to go through. We would never walk down these paths by our own choice, but we must know that He has walked this path ahead of us. When we are in the middle of these seemingly trying times, “draw near to Him, and He will draw near to you.”