Communal Responsibility

Where do you find comfort? Maybe it’s a nice bed, or a good night of sleep, or a delicious meal, or a warm cup of tea, or a walk outside, or a round of golf, or quality time with friends. We are good at searching for comfort, but we don’t always find it where we think we should. While these things aren’t bad, but when we go to them for comfort and never go to God, we miss out on true comfort. Maybe this is why anxiety, depression, and suicide rates have climbed in the past few years. Our world is in desperate need of God’s comfort, but they’re substituting it with worldly comforts. As the Church, it’s easy to recognize God’s blessings for ourselves without taking them to the hurting people around us. We forget that the majority of the world doesn’t have the hope we do, the peace we experience, or the comfort we need in the midst of suffering. When the world is dark, who will bring the true Light? Every one of God’s blessings has been given to us to fulfill our needs and the needs of others around us. We must first trust in God as our source of comfort before we can give it away to other people. Once the people of God start to do this, the world will experience the true comfort of their loving Father. Reflection/Discussion Question: How can you bring God’s comfort to non-Christians around you?

“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” is a cliche that we love to throw around. But not only is it not helpful at all (narrowly escaping death isn’t exactly the kind of life we are aiming for), it is also false. Sometimes suffering doesn’t kill us, but it doesn’t make us stronger. Sometimes suffering brings us to the darkest times in our lives. The pain becomes too much to bear and we crumble. This is why Paul begins his letter in 2 Corinthians talking about the God of comfort. He wants to give truth to the Corinthian church to prepare them so that they won’t be swept out to sea by their troubles. He doesn’t just tell them about the comfort that God offers, he proves it and assures them that it is enough. We may cognitively know that God comforts us, but we don’t always believe it. If we fully believed that God will give us the comfort we need in our suffering, we would go straight to him every time. But instead of going to God, we often try to handle the suffering on our own. We go to other worldly things for comfort such as food, alcohol, relationships, sex, entertainment, etc., and we wonder why we don’t feel any better.  In order to have confidence in God’s comfort, we can read the Bible to be reminded of the countless times God has provided his people with comfort in all of their trials and sufferings. We can talk to friends who have experienced his comfort. And we can experience God’s comfort for ourselves by going to him before trying to find comfort anywhere else. Reflection/Discussion Question: Do you have confidence in God’s comfort? Why or why not?