05/31/2026
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STRANGE COMFORT
2 Corinthians 1:3-4
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, 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.
There is unimaginable suffering in the world. Christians are being persecuted, beheaded, and burned by fire. Orphan children are starving, living on the streets, and begging for scraps of food. In a world of great suffering, it’s easy to feel our struggles are unworthy of God’s attention, but God sees every hurt and comforts His people with a divine purpose.
Unwisely, the moment we measure our suffering against someone else’s, we open the door for the enemy to convince us that our needs don’t matter and that we shouldn’t bring them before God. God does not measure or compare our suffering. He cares if we are going through a crisis, unable to pay our bills, or if we receive a cancer diagnosis. God cares deeply about our needs, hurts, and afflictions.
For example, Jesus showed deep love and sympathy for a boy who was being thrown into the fire by evil spirits.
Mark 9:25-27
And when Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “You mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.”
And after crying out and convulsing him terribly, it came out, and the boy was like a co**se, so that most of them said, “He is dead.”
But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose.
With a similar compassion, Jesus loved and comforted Peter, who denied Jesus three times and was deeply ashamed and sorrowful. It would be misguided to dismiss Peter’s struggle as insignificant compared to the boy tormented by the evil spirit, or to think Jesus would reject Peter for his failure. Jesus does not rank pain or prioritize people based on the severity of the need. He responds with compassion to all.
Some of you may be going through a very difficult trial. It may be from external circumstances; such as: economic problems, health issues, a fire that destroyed everything, or kids in a crisis.
For others, it may be emotional distress. You may be discouraged, struggling with doubt, battling a besetting sin, or feeling an overwhelming sense of personal failure. You may even feel unwanted and unloved.
Whatever you are facing, Jesus knows; He sees and hears your cry. If we reach out to Him, His hand holds us and consoles us.
Isaiah 41:13
For I, the Lord your God, hold your right hand; it is I who say to you, “Fear not, I am the one who helps you.”
Psalm 63:8
My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me.
Psalm 94:19
When the cares of my heart are many, your consolations cheer my soul.
So, the real question isn’t IF Jesus will comfort; it’s WHEN and WHAT that comfort will look like. God’s comfort may seem strange to us because it does not always come in the way we expect or desire.
For example, if we’re out of work, we don’t just want to feel God’s presence; we want a job. We don’t want to walk through the valley of death; we want to be taken out of it. Like Israel in the wilderness, we want to escape, even if it means going back to the place that once held us in bo***ge.
Too often, we want relief more than we want God. God will comfort us in our affliction, but more importantly, He wants our whole heart, our deepest affection, and our complete obedience. He knows us better than we know ourselves, and He is at work in every affliction for our ultimate good, even though it doesn’t feel good.
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
The deepest level of worship is praising God through the pain, thanking God through the trials, trusting Him when we are tempted to lose hope, and loving Him, even when He seems distant. The Holy Spirit gives us faith and grace to do this.
In return, God comforts those who worship Him. In 2 Corinthians 1:3, we read that He is the father of mercy and the God of all comfort. Not some comfort but all comfort, even if it comes in a strange, unexpected way.
We often believe that comfort means resolving our issues. With our friends and family, most attempts at comfort are efforts to help us escape the affliction instead of seeing God as the one “who comforts us in all our affliction.”
We’ve been wrongly conditioned from “health and wealth” preachers to believe that comfort means being freed from all our troubles. We think that if the difficulty continues, God is not comforting us at all. However, true comfort comes from being present with someone in their pain and suffering. Even we provide this type of comfort when someone’s loved one dies. There are no adequate words to say that can alleviate a person’s feelings of grief or distress, but our presence can bring comfort. Comfort doesn’t remove the situation; it eases the burden by sharing the weight of sorrow.
God’s strange comfort is like that. He doesn’t always remove our affliction, yet He is always present with us in the midst of it. He shares the weight of our burdens if we give it to Him.
God is mighty to save and able to deliver us. He does these things in His way and in His timing, and these seem strange to us at the time. So, we cry out, “Why, God? When will you deliver? Don’t your care?” While we remain in our painful season, He is at work within us, and His comfort, if we will receive it, empowers us to endure.
If God allowed affliction to run its course without His presence, we would be undone. The fact that He is present sustains us and holds us steady in the midst of our trial.
Why does God allow us to remain in affliction? As 2 Corinthians 1:4 says,
“…so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction.”
In other words, the Holy Spirit has a purpose in our pain. One reason is to learn how to comfort and encourage others who are suffering. But there are other reasons as well: to teach us to trust God, to help us give thanks in all circumstances, to strengthen our faith, and to draw us into deeper, more earnest prayer and fellowship with God.
James 1:2-4
Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.
And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
God has many reasons for offering comfort instead of immediate deliverance. We may never fully understand them, but He is always present. He never allows suffering to be random or meaningless. And though we’ve often been led to believe that God does not allow suffering, the Bible makes it clear that He does allow it for a divine purpose. The whole book of Job is about this. The message of the Cross and the suffering of His Son demonstrate this.
Even the apostle Paul stated the purpose behind his own suffering.
2 Corinthians 1:8-9
For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia.
For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself.
Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death.
But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.
If Paul had not faced those overwhelming trials and pressures, he would never have learned to rely on God and might have continued relying on his own strength.
We can try to avoid life’s troubles and despairing circumstances, but if we succeed, we may miss the greatest spiritual lesson in learning to rely on God.
So, we need to ask ourselves. Is trusting God worth embracing life’s difficulties? Is enduring hardship worth becoming an unshakable man or woman of God? Paul thought so.
Philippians 3:8-11
Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.
For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
After all, we willingly go without food to lose weight, push through pain at the gym to grow stronger, and work long hours to earn money. Shouldn’t we be even more willing to endure suffering to become more like Jesus?
Why is it so easy to worship God and thank Him when he takes away our pain, but so hard to worship Him when we’re still in the middle of it? Sadly, this shows how weak our love for God is, because love is patient, bears all things, and endures all things.
1 Corinthians 13:4-7
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude.
It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Remember the three Hebrew young men who were about to be thrown into the fire for refusing to bow to King Nebuchadnezzar? They loved God more than their own life.
Daniel 3:16-18
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter.
"If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king.
"But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.”
I don’t know what “fire” you are facing, but you can trust God in the fire. He will be with you, comforting you even as the “flames” still burn around you. Therefore, you can choose to praise Him now. As you do that, you will begin to feel His comfort, and you will be set free from fear, worry, and anxiety that the trial attempts to produce in your life. So lay your burden upon the Lord—He sees, He cares, He loves you, and He is at work for your good! Praise Him and He will comfort you and give you rest!
Jesus said in Matthew 11:28-30
Come to me, all 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.
Jesus is the God of all comfort. He fulfilled Isaiah 61:1-3.
The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; to grant to those who mourn in Zion—to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified.
Whatever you are going through, physically or spiritually, come to Jesus today for comfort. Trust Him to be present with you while you endure and listen for His direction.
