Thoughts from daily Bible reading for today- January 20, 2011
“And many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother.” John 11:19
Have you lost someone or something close to your heart—a baby, a spouse, a friend, a job or an opportunity? A great loss requires great grace or the pain may be unbearable. Why do some expecting mothers have a stillborn child and others don’t? Can we truly understand these puzzling matters until we get to heaven and we are able to ask, “Why Lord, why?”
Where is God when emotions run raw and a great hole of hurt embeds in the heart? We don’t always understand the ways of God, but we can always count on Christ’s comfort. The Lord lingers close to those caught in the pain of great loss. What others cannot totally understand, your Heavenly Father fully comprehends. Grace soothes aching hearts. Christ’s comfort nurses like cool cough syrup flowing down a swollen, enflamed throat.
“For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ” (2 Corinthians 1:5). The Lord’s comfort is limitless in its capacity to cure.
Furthermore, Christ comforts us, so we are able to extend His compelling comfort to others. Productive pain pays it forward in a faith-based solution to other sad souls. Giving is therapy in God’s economy, so those of us saved by grace are not stingy with its application. Who do you know that needs a listening ear, a silent prayer or a caring visit?
If comfort is kept closed up in the closet of our busyness then we miss out on one of life’s great joys. Shame on any servant of Jesus that only has time to hear the heart of the spiritually healthy. Be aware, as tears hover under the surface of a tender heart in your circle of influence. Look around. Who is struggling with health, work or relational issues? Comfort them, as your influence ripples like a rock slicing through a still body of water.
Noah was known as the comforter, “He named him Noah and said, “He will comfort us in the labor and painful toil of our hands caused by the ground the LORD has cursed” (Genesis 5:29). Have comfort in Christ’s name and you will never lack candidates who need to be comforted.
Say a prayer for someone in despair; send flowers to a mother who just lost her little one after the first trimester of pregnancy; network for an acquaintance in career transition; pay the rent for a struggling relative; or, introduce someone broken with the uplifting love and saving power of Jesus Christ. Comfort is your platform to proclaim God’s grace. You cannot over comfort others, so join the Body of Christ in loving on another hurting heart.
“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God” (2 Corinthians 1:3-4).
Where do I need Christ’s comfort and who do I know that needs His comfort and joy?
Related Readings: Job 42:11; Psalm 86:17, 119:76; John 14:1; 2 Corinthians 7:6-7
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Just wondering… since there will be no more tears in heaven but rather joy
and happiness as we praise our God and Savior, I’m of the belief that any and
all negative, tragic, happenings here in our life time will NOT be remember in heaven; therefore, there would be no need to ask “Why, Lord, why?”
Just a thought