Your Pain is Your Platform

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?

These days, with social media and technology, it’s easy to confuse number of connections with depth of relationship. We settle for social gatherings full of small talk, consistent interactions on Facebook, and quick work conversations to fill us up. But settling for these kinds of relationships over deep relationships is like eating a bag of chips when you’re hungry for a meal. The chips may curb your hunger for the moment, but you will be hungry again.  Yet, we settle for these kinds of superficial relationships over and over again and wonder why we feel so lonely. Anxiety and depression are at an all time high in teens and young adults. We have to wonder if the width of connection may be replacing depth of connection and how that replacement is affecting our mental and spiritual health. We were made for the kind of connection that the Trinity models for us. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are in perfect unity. They are committed to one another and in perfect community with one another. If we were made in the image of the Trinity, we were made to reflect this kind of beautiful community with one another. This doesn’t mean that we have to invest in every single person in our lives. Even Jesus didn’t invest in more than twelve people. He had relationships with more than twelve, but he gave himself to the twelve and heavily invested in three within that twelve. Jesus modeled for us the impact of unyielding commitment to a few friends. Jesus revealed parts of himself to these three that he didn’t to the rest, like in the Garden of Gethsemane (Matthew 26:36-37) and on a mountaintop during his transfiguration (Matthew 17:1-2). If we want committed relationships in our lives, it starts with looking to Jesus and following his example with others in our lives. Reflection/Discussion Question: How does thinking about the community within the Trinity help you think differently about your own community?