Pizza has a way of transforming my day. If Corrin knows I have a tough day, the quickest way to help me get through it is to promise me pizza...or tacos. I love tacos. My personal life motto is M.I.R.T. "Make It Rain Tacos." Burgers are also great for brightening a day gone south...this is why I have to exercise, but I digress. The point is that even after a bad day, I can find consolation in some of my favorite meals--maybe that's why they call it "comfort food."
There are, however, circumstances in life that require a level of comfort that no pizza, taco, burger, or even brownie and ice cream can provide. Not even close. Trials that go beyond the pacifying power of money or cars, even of close friendship. The pressure only builds when adversity comes as the result of persecution for your faith in Jesus Christ. When the world unleashes it hatred for those who name the name of Christ, how do we hold up under the strain? Paul's second (really his third) letter to the church at Corinth has several central themes, and one of them is living under persecution. I'd like to make three observations from 2 Corinthians 1:1-11
1. God is a God of comfort.
Paul calls God the "Father of mercies and God of all comfort." (1:3) What a remarkable thought that we should not consider cheaply. It is an aspect of God that sets him aside from nearly every other major "diety" of man-made religion. A God that cares to comfort man? And yet Paul insists upon it, he finds his source of strength and of endurance to be rooted in the comfort by which God holds him up in his time of distress. I think our lack of confidence in this reality is revealed by our behavior when times of testing come. We may drown our pain, fear, or sorrow in food, work, exercise, therapy groups, relationships, even substance abuse. We may confront our trial in anger or we may flee from it in fear. Seldom do we cast our cares upon God knowing that He cares for us. For Paul, suffering apart from the comfort of God is an unthinkable horror.
2. God does not comfort us by removing our affliction--he comforts us in our affliction!
Paul states of God "who comforts us in our affliction" (1:4a) and declares "For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too." (1:5) In other words, Paul treats suffering and comfort as occurring simultaneously. Comfort is not necessarily the removal of our affliction but is instead the presence of God in the midst of our afflictions. This reality should reshape our prayer life if we are prone to beg God to remove difficulty from our life instead of praying for His merciful comfort in the midst of the circumstances in which He has placed us.
3. Suffering has a purpose.
In fact, a survey of Scripture will reveal that God often has several designs for the believer in suffering. It may be to produce perseverance, to refine and purify faith, to impress reliance upon God, etc. In 2 Corinthians 1, Paul says he suffers and receives comfort from God "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." Paul recognizes that his affliction and the comfort he receives from God uniquely enables him to comfort those who find themselves similarly tried. Paul has first-hand knowledge of pain and suffering with which to empathize, and as the recipient of God's unlimited comfort, Paul can share that same comfort he experienced with others. When God brings experiences of suffering, loss,or bereavement into our lives, how often do we rejoice in the ability to experience God's comfort, and to share that comfort with those around us who are suffering?