God’s comfort in the Psalms
“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” (2 Corinthians 1:3-4). God, the righteous creator and ruler of this massive universe, actually comforts His puny, fallen people when we suffer. How incredible is that? It’s encouraging, uplifting, and, well, comforting.
But what does that look like? What does the Bible say?
Psalm 86:17: You, O Lord, have helped me and comforted me.
Psalm 23:4: Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
Psalm 119:76: May your unfailing love be my comfort.
Psalm 71:21: You will increase my honor and comfort me once again.
The psalmists remember God’s comfort in the past, sense it in the present, pray to experience it, and trust that it will return to them in the future. They don’t feel a constant, steady stream of God’s comfort, as I tend to expect after reading 2 Corinthians 1:4. Sometimes I think I’ve failed as a Christian if I’m not aware of His comfort in all of my troubles. But rather than beating myself up for my imperfections, I can take comfort in knowing that even the authors of the Bible lost their awareness of His comfort at times.
God’s comfort in the prophets
Isaiah 51:3: The Lord will surely comfort Zion and will look with compassion on all her ruins.
Isaiah 52:9: Burst into songs of joy together, you ruins of Jerusalem, for the Lord has comforted his people, he has redeemed Jerusalem.
Jeremiah 31:13: I will turn their mourning into gladness; I will give them comfort and joy instead of sorrow.
God promises comfort to the ruins of Jerusalem, to those who are mourning her destruction. Yet the city was ruined and His people were mourning as a result of His judgment. He was responsible for their suffering. And now He wants to comfort them, after what He did to them?
Then I notice that phrase “has redeemed” (past tense) in Isaiah 52:9. The Lord didn’t destroy Jerusalem out of spite and for no purpose beyond causing anguish and misery. In the process of judging them, He redeemed His people. That redemption brought them His comfort, even among the ruins.
The whole goal behind their suffering was to draw them back into a joyful relationship with Him. How comforting it is to know that He desired that relationship so much that He actively worked for it. He could have simply given up on them.
Isaiah 61:1-2: The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn.
I’ve always had a hard time looking past the prophecy of the Messiah in this verse and seeing it as it applies to Isaiah himself. But now, as I think about it in that context, I’m surprised to realize that, even though God frequently used the prophet to deliver a frightening message of judgment, Isaiah knew that his purpose (his anointing) was to preach good news to the poor and to comfort all who mourn.
Throughout the sixty-six chapters of his book, most of his words sound harsh and painful. But it was a necessary pain. A pain that brought the people’s focus back to God. The prophet who proclaims bad news is, at the same time, and even more importantly, being used by God to preach good news to the poor, the brokenhearted, the captives, the prisoners, and all who mourn.
God’s comfort in the New Testament
When I’m thinking about God’s comfort, two New Testament passages come to mind: John 14-16 and 2 Corinthians 1. The King James version of John uses the word Comforter when Jesus promises to send the Holy Spirit to dwell within us. God Himself lives right here inside me, not as my judge or my critic, but as my Comforter. He couldn’t get any closer than that.
In 2 Corinthians 1, Paul uses the word comfort nine times in six verses. But his main point isn’t that God guarantees that He will make us feel good or comfortable. Sometimes I want to take it that way. I want this passage to be His assurance that I can expect to experience His soothing presence every minute of every day. Of course that leads to disappointment and a sense of guilt when those feelings fade away.
Instead, Paul’s emphasis is on how God’s comforting me should affect other people. He comforts us “so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. . . . If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer.”
There’s no guarantee here of peace and tranquility, which is how I imagine God’s comfort working. Instead, Paul talks of distress and suffering. The good (and comforting) news is that whether I’m feeling distress or comfort, God intends it for the benefit of others.
Maybe comforting me in all my troubles doesn’t mean patting me on my head and telling me that everything is going to be okay. Maybe that word “all” isn’t being used to describe the same response from God no matter what I go through. Maybe it means that, whatever my wide variety of circumstances might be, God has an equally wide variety of ways to comfort me.
Sometimes my sense of comfort comes directly from His indwelling Holy Spirit/Comforter. Sometimes He uses other people to soothe me. But sometimes His comfort comes through reflecting, rather than passively waiting for the feelings to spring up inside. I’m comforted as I remember His actions in the past and as I ponder the ways He uses suffering to redeem us, to grow us, to allow us to minister to others, and to glorify Himself.
