Find the Comfort You Need Now

Such a small gesture, but the comfort went soul deep. Yet she was unaware that she was offering the comfort I desperately needed. In times of discouragement or relentless hardship, when you feel too empty to even pray, the Holy Spirit intercedes for you, helping you find the comfort you need.

We develop our own self-soothing methods, some of which are healthy, while some sabotage the comfort we seek. When I faced a recent unexpected and painful event in my own life, I went through my coping toolbox employing my best tools for managing anxiety and grief. On the surface these work initially, taking the edge off the pain. But like most physical pain killers, these only placate symptoms without addressing the true source of the pain.

Even if you think you know the details of your suffering, and the exact approach for finding solace in that hard place, finding the comfort you need now comes from only one place.

In 2 Corinthians 1:3-5, Paul reminds us God is the God of all comfort:

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.”

For many years I found these verses soothing, but the verses seemed more others focused, reminding us that we will find solace, but the exhortation was to then offer that same solace to others.

But I missed so much of what Paul taught about God and His compassion in these verses. Throughout Paul’s letter to the Corinthian church in 2 Corinthians he speaks of the tremendous hardships he endured resulting from his dedication to the spread of the gospel. Suffering repeated beatings, stonings, shipwrecks including perilous time in the sea waiting for rescue, imprisonment, hunger, lack of sleep and nakedness, Paul experienced grave hardship. (2 Corinthians 11:25-22)

Yet he shares how God comforted him in all of these trials. His experience of God’s consolation rarely brought a change of circumstances, but a deep solace and peace within the hardship and pain. Too often my idea of comfort in suffering is the removal of the suffering or changing of the circumstances.

Instead, Paul invites us into a new understanding of consolation along the hard paths. As we encounter the God of all comfort, we find a depth to our consolation we never found in any other place. In the uniqueness of our suffering, God embraces us with every form of comfort from consolation, encouragement, strength, grace, instruction, guidance, refreshment to every kind of help designed especially for our soul’s deepest needs.

Through the Holy Spirit, our Heavenly Father meets us in the middle of hardship with the fellowship of soul solace.

Paul knew this fellowship of soul solace, meeting God in extreme seasons of suffering. Regardless of the hardship he faced, God’s comfort transcended his pain and sorrow even when his situation remained unchanged.

Encountering the God of all comfort along our hard paths may not remove our suffering, but we will find the comfort we need now through the refreshment of God’s unique care and the reassurance of His unfailing love. It may come through the hands and help of another along the way, or He may choose to minister in a miraculous manner.

Paul desires that we understand in the same way we share in the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings, we share also in the comfort which abounds through Christ’s victory. He also draws us into the beauty of then becoming channels of God’s full comfort to others.

An infinite circle of receiving God’s full and varied comfort with open hands and hearts which then allows that same fellowship of soul solace to flow outward to those suffering around us, pictures the infinite circle of love within the Trinity flowing outward to man.

Whether you stand in deep need of the fellowship of soul solace today or in a place of wholeness as a result of receiving God’s consolation, may the circle of God’s all-encompassing love remain unbroken, as you both receive and share the beauty of God’s comfort.

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