The Comfort of God’s Ways
The suffering that God brings into our lives enables and equips us to comfort others in their trials. Yet this enabling is only possible because of the great comfort we receive from God in the midst of our own affliction. Indeed, in tenderness and mercy, God ministers to us specifically “so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction.”
If we are to bestow compassion on those who are suffering, we must first battle the tendency to grow bitter and inward-focused as a result of our own troubles. In the Old Testament, we read the story of a young Israelite girl who was captured in a Syrian raid, taken far from her family, and forced into servitude. Her life held great potential for bitterness, anger, and vengefulness. But when she learned that the master of her household had contracted leprosy, she encouraged him to seek the Lord’s healing, even directing him to someone who could help (2 Kings 5:1-3). How was she able to have such compassion that she was willing to point him towards such comfort? At least in part, it must have been that when she witnessed all her master’s turmoil and heartache, her own experience had already so softened her heart as to make her empathetic to his concerns.
In addition, we must avoid offering merely intellectual or pat answers, which often hurt rather than heal. In-depth philosophical discussions on the nature of suffering might stimulate the mind, but nothing but the gospel can settle the heart. And we do well to remind ourselves that God’s ways are beyond our understanding. We do not have to have all the answers. We must not forget the eloquence of empathetic silence. Arguably, one of the most helpful ways in which Job’s companions entered into his suffering and offered comfort was when they simply “sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him” (Job 2:13). In fact, they were being good friends to him until they decided to open their mouths!
The greatest comfort we can extend to others in their suffering is, gently and with tears over their trials, to point them to Christ Himself, because only Christ can fully enter into our pain. As our ascended King and Great High Priest, He is able to “sympathize with our weaknesses” as “one who in every respect has been tempted as we are” (Hebrews 4:15).
Are there wounds in your life that you have never allowed to surface—deep sorrows that you have never given over to God? Today, ask the Lord to help you cast your burdens afresh on Him. Ask for His divine enabling to view your suffering through the prism of Christ’s cross so that you may be overwhelmed by His amazing compassion—and, in turn, be a blessing to others.
How is God calling me to think differently?
How is God reordering my heart’s affections — what I love?
What is God calling me to do as I go about my day today?
Naaman Healed of Leprosy
1lNaaman, mcommander of the army of the king of Syria, was a great man with his master and in high favor, because by him the Lord had given victory to Syria. He was a mighty man of valor, but he was a leper.1 2Now the Syrians on none of their raids had carried off a little girl from the land of Israel, and she worked in the service of Naaman's wife. 3She said to her mistress, “Would that my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.” 4So Naaman went in and told his lord, “Thus and so spoke the girl from the land of Israel.” 5And the king of Syria said, “Go now, and I will send a letter to the king of Israel.”
So he went, otaking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels2 of gold, and ten pchanges of clothing.
9So Naaman came with his horses and chariots and stood at the door of Elisha's house. 10And Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, u“Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored, and you shall be clean.” 11But Naaman was angry and went away, saying, “Behold, I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call upon the name of the Lord his God, and wave his hand over the place and cure the leper. 12Are not Abana3 and Pharpar, the rivers of vDamascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be clean?” So he turned and went away in a rage. 13But his servants came near and said to him, w“My father, it is a great word the prophet has spoken to you; will you not do it? Has he actually said to you, ‘Wash, and be clean’?” 14So he went down and dipped himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God, xand his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child, yand he was clean.
Devotional material is taken from the Truth For Life daily devotionals by Alistair Begg, published by The Good Book Company, thegoodbook.com. Used by Truth For Life with permission. Copyright © 2021, 2022, The Good Book Company.
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