Six questions: Sixth Question

If you are the God of All Comfort, why aren’t you comforting me?

“Lord, if this is the way you treat your friends, it’s no surprise you have so few.” 

Teresa of Avila

It all depends on what you want comforted.

According to the Webster Dictionary, “comfort” can mean a number of different things, including “to give strength and hope to” and “to ease the grief or trouble of.” The word comes from the Latin, “confortare” meaning, “to strengthen greatly.”

Never once did Jesus promise the kind of fluffy lovelies and nice fabric softener comfort that’s perhaps associated with the word.

And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel and the prophets, who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies. Women received back their dead, raised to life again. Others were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection. Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison. They were stoned; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated—the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground. (Hebrews 11:32-38)

And these were only those heroes of faith before Jesus came! “These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised. God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.” (Hebrews 11:39-40) Conservatively speaking, the persecution has increased.

God’s promise is this: that we are his.

“Fears and scruples shake us: in the great hand of God I stand; and thence against the undivulged pretence I fight of treasonous malice.” (Shakespeare)

“See now that I myself am He! There is no god beside me. I put to death and I bring to life, I have wounded and I will heal, and no one can deliver out of my hand.” (Deut. 32:39) “I, even I, am the LORD, and apart from me there is no savior. I have revealed and saved and proclaimed—I, and not some foreign god among you. ‘You are my witnesses,’ declares the LORD, ‘that I am God. Yes, and from ancient days I am he. No one can deliver out of my hand. When I act, who can reverse it?’” (Isaiah 43:11-13)

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.” (John 14:1-3)

“In the world they had trouble, but in Christ they had peace.” (Matthew Henry commentary on 2 Cor. 1)

We’re comforted—or strengthened greatly—by God who has given us a name, a purpose and a destiny. He’s rescued us from “the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves.” (Col. 1:13)

There are times in life, however, when a deeper, more painful question emerges. A little afraid to even voice the question, we whisper, “If you’re the God of All Comfort, why aren’t you comforting me?”

American playwright Thornton Wilder wrote a single act play called “The Angel Troubled the Waters.”

Broken, sick and wounded people are gathered around a pool. They wait—some for days—for an angel to come and stir the waters of the pool (From John 5). Tradition has, it is said, that the first into the pool after the angel troubles the waters will be healed.

A newcomer, a doctor, comes today. He prays, “Free me, long-expected love, from this old burden. Since I cannot stay, since I must return into the city, come now, renewal, come, release.” (Thornton Wilder)

Another invalid waiting at the pool tells the newcomer that if he were to be the first, that the cure would be wasted, as he is not as sick as some.

An angel comes—visible only to the doctor—and kneels, finger poised over the water.

The doctor begins to beg, asking that the angel heal him, that he be free from his burden and melancholy. Repeatedly, the angel tells him, “Healing is not for you.”

The doctor asks again, pleading on the basis of the good that he could accomplish if only he were healed. He begs, “Must I drag my shame, prince and singer, all my days more bowed than my neighbor?” (Thornton Wilder)

The angel pauses a moment and answers, “Without your wounds where would your power be? It is your melancholy that makes your low voice tremble into the hearts of men. The very angels themselves cannot persuade the wretched and blundering children on Earth as can one human being broken on the wheels of living. In Love’s service only wounded soldiers can serve. Physician, draw back.” (Thornton Wilder)

Perhaps the last line can be rephrased as, In Christ’s service, only wounded soldiers can serve. We don’t have the wisdom or perspective to see how our continued brokenness—our lack of healing—serves the advances of God’s purpose.

All praise to the God and Father of our Master, Jesus the Messiah! Father of all mercy! God of all healing counsel! He comes alongside us when we go through hard times, and before you know it, he brings us alongside someone else who is going through hard times so that we can be there for that person just as God was there for us. We have plenty of hard times that come from following the Messiah, but no more so than the good times of his healing comfort – we get a full measure of that, too. (MSG 2 Cor. 1:3-5)