Devotional: My God Is Comfort

We human beings usually blame something or someone for everything that happens to us, and worst of all, sometimes we blame ourselves, without realizing that this makes us fall into a vicious circle in which a mistake turns into guilt, and guilt leads us to make new mistakes. Thus a torment continues that brings about the total destruction of our self-esteem.

Those of us who walk hand in hand with God must see things differently. First, we are convinced that nothing escapes His control and that His will takes precedence in our lives. If we are convinced of this, then we must seek to learn from every situation.

Job was convinced that his life was in God's hands: “For He is the one who makes the wound, and He will bind it up; He wounds, and His hands heal” (Job 5:18). All the useless and foolish words of his friends did not cause Job to lose his focus. How much better it would have been if they had conveyed compassion through their eyes and the warm touch of a hand on his shoulder.

But Job knew that comfort would come, not from human hands, but from God Himself: “Then Job arose, tore his robe, shaved his head, fell to the ground, and worshiped.” Can you imagine someone worshiping upon hearing news like the news he had just been given?

“And he said: Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I shall return there. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD. In all this Job did not sin, nor did he attribute any wrongdoing to God.” Job 1:20–22. Surely Job believed there was a divine purpose in this situation and trusted that comfort would come.

Yet it did not come immediately; instead, worse trials came into his life. But Job remained faithful, “for he endured as though seeing the Invisible One” (Hebrews 11:27).

For many years I lost my pregnancies—four losses in all. The last pregnancy reached full term, but the baby suffocated because of the umbilical cord. I have only one son, by the mercy of God, who was pleased to let me enjoy being a mother.

My husband's daughter-in-law, whom I consider my daughter and who is a Christian, lost her first pregnancy. I stayed by her side the whole time, embracing her and singing songs of praise amid her pain, which was mine as well. But God had prepared me for this moment many years earlier, and in that pain I was God's hands. He used me to convey comfort and hope in the face of her loss. Today she has a beautiful little girl whom we love, but she never sinned; she understood that God had something better for her life and waited on Him.

God's comfort comes disguised in many forms: a hand, an embrace, a silence, a gift, a helping hand, someone's simple presence, a shoulder ready to receive a flood of tears. God is there in every comfort we receive, for whenever mercy moves us toward someone who is suffering, it is the Holy Spirit who is at work.

Let us not be troublesome comforters like those who comforted Job; instead, let us follow Christ's example. Healing wounds, feeding the sheep, and returning it, restored, to the flock is our responsibility.