God of our life, there are days when the burdens we carry chafe our shoulders and weigh us down; when the road seems dreary and endless, when we can smell our own worry, and the skies are grey and threatening; when our lives have no music in them, our hearts are lonely, and our souls have lost their courage. Flood the path with light, run our eyes to where the skies are full of promise; tune our hearts to brave music; give us the sense of comradeship with heroes and saints of every age; and so quicken our spirits that we may be able to encourage the souls of all who journey with us on the road of life, to Your honor and glory. With every step and breath we honor Your great Name.
Augustine said, “If we had never known discomfort, we would have never known comfort. If we had never known fear, we would have never known faith. If we had never known sadness, we would have never known joy. We know good times because we have had bad, sorrow exposes joy. Where there is pain, there is healing. Where there is mourning, there is dancing. Where there is poverty, there is the kingdom.”
God does not suffer from DI-VISION, split vision, or a multiplicity of divided perception. He has singleness of eye and singleness of focus and He’s looking at us. In Genesis 16:13, Hagar says of God, “She gave this name to the LORD who spoke to her: “You are the God who sees me”.
The Lord has “vision”, not “di-vision”. In the eyes of God, His vision is never separated. He does not tell us things just so we can know, thus God does not comfort us solely to make us comfortable, but that we would learn to be comforters of others. On a side note, God comforts us, but He does not coddle us. Too many in the modern church seem to think God will coddle them and we really need to know the difference. To coddle means to treat someone in an indulgent, excessive, or overprotective way. Coddling obnoxiously softens every difficulty, removes every discomfort, and shields a person from the natural consequences of their choices or the hard realities of life. Coddling is an enabler and builds poor character. It often enables weakness, immaturity, and even our ongoing harmful patterns.
Whereas, comforting means to give strength and hope, to ease grief or trouble by coming alongside someone in their pain. True comfort does not always feel soft or gentle. Sometimes it even involves friction, which is truth spoken in love, correction, or the call to endure. Coddling protects us from difficulty, comforting strengthens us in the middle of difficulty. Coddling removes the weight so the person never has to actually grow under it. Comforting helps build the person to carry the weight so they become stronger. The Holy Spirit is called “The Comforter” not “the coddler”.
The word Comforter is applied to the Holy Spirit four times, John 14:16 and again in vs. 26, John 15:26, and again in John 16:7. Jesus promised His followers that The Strengthener would be with them forever. This promise is not a child’s song that gently lulls us to sleep, nor is it for those who lack fortitude … it is a blood transfusion for courageous living, and not just today, but more far reaching than we can imagine. If it is tomorrow which fills men with dread, God is already there, offering them options when it appears there are not choices left. Please remember that all the tomorrows of our life have to pass through the hands of Jesus before they can get to us.
Jesus makes a promise of comfort and consolation to us in Matthew 11:28 saying, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”
In Psalm 9:9, the LORD is a refuge for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble.
He does not “coddle” us, but comforts us. Consider then, coddling is different than comforting. To “coddle” means to “treat in an indulgent, excessive, or overprotective way,” and “comfort” means “to give strength and hope to, to ease grief or trouble.” It would seem that to “coddle” someone is enabling them to continue their bad behavior, whereas to “comfort” might actually involve friction by being direct with our friend. Giving strength and hope is not always a gentle, soft-spoken thing.
— C.S. Lewis wrote, “God is the only comfort, He is also the supreme terror: the thing we most need and the thing we most want to hide from. He is our only possible ally, and we have made ourselves His enemies. Some people talk as if meeting the gaze of absolute goodness would be fun. They need to think again. They are still only playing with religion. Goodness is either the great safety or the great danger – according to the way you react to it. And we have reacted the wrong way.”
God kneels close to the shattered heart, gathers what is crushed and what others would name as unmendable— God is a place of safety for those who are shaking, a refuge for the trembling, afraid, vulnerable, and undone because some breaks are so severe that no human hand can hold the pieces together; the gap is simply too large. God supplies the strength that can hold and mend even that kind of fracture— you know the one that feels beyond repair.
So, we will not fear, though we are rejected, excluded, cast down like rubble, though the ground gives way beneath us, and mountains slip into the dark of the sea— for He is the ever-present help in the hour the world forgets us, He is the mender who holds the clay. He looks upon our ruins, not with judgment but with compassion, and sees the desert we have become and still calls it a garden waiting. Friend, the wasteland will not have the last word— it never does. Joy will rise up where ashes have settled, thanksgiving will spring into color where the gray scale silence used to live, and singing— Oh yes, the singing will return to what was rubble. Blessed, then, are those who mourn, for the very crack that broke us is the seam where comfort enters, gold poured into the grief, making of the ruin something whole and luminous, no longer just repaired, but holy.
i’m Social Porter for Living In His Name Ministries.