Category Archives: suffering

Whispers of comfort

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“Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed,” says the Lord, who has compassion on you. “O afflicted city, lashed by storms and not comforted, I will build you with stones of turquoise, your foundations with sapphires. 

 (Isa 54.10-11)

All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is our merciful Father and the source of all comfort. 

(2Cor 1.3)

I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, “Look, God’s home is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them. He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.”

(Rev 21.3&4)

Lashed by storms and not comforted, surrounded by a land laid waste by disaster and conflict.. This image in Isaiah’s prophecy of the desolation suffered by Jerusalem is a powerful and heart-rending one – calling to mind for us in these days places like the Syrian city of Aleppo, where distress beyond telling is the daily experience of so many people. Our globe continues to suffer the consequences of human rebellion against God – and humanity’s exaltation of itself.

Sometimes it can be a very private and personal desolation, a series of losses, setbacks and disappointments – in others and ourselves – which leave us reeling, breathless and weak. It was into such a personal situation many years ago that my mother read these words to me, bringing word from God of his tender compassion for my grief and agony. They were a lifeline, a trustworthy and secure connection to the solid ground of God’s over-arching provision for me through Jesus’s death and resurrection. All would one day be well, and I could hang on in the dark to that promise.

Is this not one of the most precious elements of the riches which we find in the coming of Jesus to be our Saviour? We are to be comforted – held closely by loving arms, like frightened or lonely children; warmed by the fiery love of God dwelling within us; quieted in our spirits by the knowledge that there is one in control who is all-powerful and ultimately victorious. Do we not all carry around in our adult bodies the spirits of little children, looking for a home and security, a place to lay down a burden of responsibility which is too great for us? Surely this is what Jesus meant when he called us to bear his yoke, which is light, and to allow the Almighty and Everlasting God to be God, to take from us those things which crush and destroy?

Our guilt for past sins – gone, by the grace of God in the atoning death of Christ on the cross. Our regrets for what might have been – lifted by the promise of eternal life in a new creation with infinite possibilities for good, and by God’s ability to work all things together for good for those who love him. Our fears for the future – transformed into quiet hope and expectation, that with God, we can do all that needs to be done, and that He sees and knows how to value our desire to obey and keep faith with him.

“Comfort, comfort my people,” says your God. “Speak tenderly to Jerusalem. Tell her that her sad days are gone and her sins are pardoned.”( Isa 40.1)

The comfort which God offers is ultimately guaranteed by the fulfillment of all the prophecies about the coming of a Saviour. That comfort comes to us at the price of God’s son taking on human flesh, and then taking that flesh to the cross – for me, for you – where he was not comforted in his appalling isolation and pain, but mocked and abandoned.

What we receive, Jesus gave up. In his darkness there was no comfort, only agony and degradation as sin shut him out from his Father’s presence. Do I even begin to grasp what the perfect Son of God suffered for love of me? No, I can only wonder, and worship, and reach out passionately to grasp the precious comfort which his death provides for me – how I need this!

Be comforted, be warmed and reassured this Christmas, as you celebrate the coming of such a Saviour, and have confidence in telling others. We have tidings of great comfort and joy!

Right isn’t always easy

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Keep me from lying to myself; give me the privilege of knowing your instructions. I have chosen to be faithful; I have determined to live by your regulations. I cling to your laws. Lord, don’t let me be put to shame!

Make me walk along the path of your commands, for that is where my happiness is found.

Turn my eyes from worthless things, and give me life through your word.

(Ps 119. 29-31,35,37)

How often in our human frailty do we manage to convince ourselves that the easy path is the right one – simply because it is the easy one? We know somewhere deep inside that we are lying to ourselves, and that the attractively easy option is not God’s best, not the choice that echoes His character and instructions for holy living. But we choose not to hear that truth, to deafen it by our own arguments, tuning in to the culture around us that clamours of our self-worth, our entitlement, the obvious morality of looking after ourselves first!

There is a very real danger of course that as followers of Jesus we wrongly assume that good things are somehow wrong, since we know we cannot ‘deserve’ them. This is a trap, and leads to a bitter, martyred attitude to life, where we end up wallowing in self-inflicted discomfort or difficulty, and that is no more glorifying to God than a self-centred, lazy life!

But there is a necessary balance and we need to be honest – as the psalmist is here – in recognising that it is only with God’s help that we can learn to regularly make godly choices in how we live, in the paths along which our lives are taken. The prospect of pain, being out of our comfort zones, difficulty and even loss, should never be deterrents if we see God clearly summoning us. Think of the prophet Jonah, who heard a clear call from God, and deliberately chose to go in the opposite direction, rejecting the uncomfortable job of preaching repentance to the enemies and oppressors of his people. God’s grace finally turned him around to obedience, but what a dreadful time he had of it!

When he wrote to the little church in Philippi, Paul reminded them of the example of our Lord and Saviour – always a good idea when we are unsure about what to do! Jesus was called on to abandon his throne, the privileges of heaven, the freedom of eternity, and to embrace the limitations of time, space and flesh. He “did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being…he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross.”(Phil 2.6-8)

Jesus obeyed his Father’s will, aligning his own will with it, submitting in love for the Father, and in love for us, to this humiliation and suffering. Obedience may well involve us in suffering. And if so, then we can rejoice that we should be counted worthy to share in the experience of our Lord! Does the love of Christ not compel us to seek ways in which we may glorify and exalt him; to show that we are profoundly indebted to him and delight to honour and serve him in any way we can? Is it fitting that the disciples of a suffering and crucified Lord should have soft feet and no scars of their own to testify to their journey with him?

I do not desire the martyr-complex, I choose not to invite pity. But I will beseech my loving and faithful God to give me courage to embrace with a whole heart the consequences of the call which he places on my life. May I not be like Jonah, running away from a costly obedience, but rather like Christ, who steadily faced down every painful encounter, that he might obey his Father. May I choose to offer my suffering, grief and pain to the God who is walking the path with me, as offerings of praise to his keeping of me through trials.

There will be grace sufficient for every step, let me only be willing to keep walking!