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Comfort

             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. (II Corinthians 1:3-4)

This passage was one of several mentioned in Jesus Always. The idea for the day is that when we are anxious, we should seek God and pour out our troubles to Him, then listen as He comforts us and shows us His perspective. As  usual, when the word comfort is mentioned, I feel morally obligated to point out that the term doesn’t come from the idea of patting someone on the shoulder and saying, “There, there…” It comes from Latin terms meaning with and strength.

          When it comes to children, we tend to comfort them by addressing the problem, whether it’s a dirty diaper or a cut finger, then changing the child’s perspective from “It’s all wrong” to “It’ll be all right.” As they grow, the responsibility for addressing the problem and changing their perspective tends to shift to them.

          As an adult, I hear two seemingly contradictory ideas about comforting others. On the one hand, I’m told we shouldn’t ask someone to change their perspective until we’ve solved their problem. On the other, I’m told we shouldn’t barge in and try to solve their problem or change their perspective. Instead, we should just “be” with them.

          This passage isn’t about comforting someone else. It’s about God comforting us, but our ideas about what it means to comfort someone will color our perceptions of God comforting us. When I am upset (worried, angry, overwhelmed…), I want God to ride in like a knight in shining armor – or like the wrath of God! – and fix the problem. That will eliminate the need for my emotional turmoil, which will naturally transform into rejoicing, gratitude, and worship. What could be more obvious or natural?

          I do not want God to listen to me squawk for an hour… day… year… decade…, waiting for me to listen so He can tell me that I’m an idiot for having thought that way, and the reality is ____. I may be the idiot described, but I don’t want to hear it, and I don’t want to wait a decade for the situation to resolve itself, whether by changing my circumstances or my perspective. In other words, I don’t want God to just “be” with me. Neither do I really want to change my perspective. Like an infant, I want God to fix my problems for me and then tell me it will be all right. I doubt I’m alone in this.

          The big keys of this passage (at least today) seem to be that God is very patient – what someone described as a 3-mile-per-hour God – and that His goal in comforting us isn’t to make us feel better but to make us be better by teaching us how to listen and to comfort.

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