“… who comforts us in all our affliction SO THAT YOU WILL BE ABLE to comfort those who are in ANY{ALL} affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”.-{2 Cor 1:4}
“LORD, I Feel Down,” the words had hardly left my lips, when 2 Cor 1:4 came to mind, “SO THAT YOU WILL BE ABLE…” I said “I guess You will work this out for good and give me an opportunity to comfort someone else who is hurting.”
What led to my “feeling down,” was days and days of headaches, intense headaches, where I had to lay down and keep my eyes closed as it hurt to have them opened. The pain was intense and with my illness on top of it, my energy was sapped even lower than usual. “BUT GOD…” comforted me with His Word and reminded me of the opportunities and ability He would enable me with, so that I would have to comfort others.
Within an hour or so my phone rang. A man who is deathly ill,calling to explain the HEADACHES he was having… and his concern for another man who had the same illness,and for his family, his wife and child… We spoke, and I reminded him of how the LORD had used him in the lives of others and how his life testified to me of “My circumstances are working out to further the Gospel”- v 13 through EVANGELIZING.. V 14 Through ENCOURAGING OTHERS TO speak the Word of God without fear…- {Phil 1;12-14}… After twenty or so minutes he said, “I’M your answer.. You have comforted me” That was not my goal when I took his call, but as he said it, I was reminded of 2 Cor 1:4 and Romans 8:28… God had worked my circumstances out for good,and He had enabled me the opportunity to comfort another with the comfort which He had comforted me. 2 Cor 1:4 shows us – “Equipped to Comfort”…
I share this to say, your trials, troubles can be a springboard used by God to use you comfort some poor hurting soul who needs His comfort, and you are GOD’S Vessel”SO THAT YOU WILL BE ABLE TO COMFORT…”
Your crushing, is God’s opportunity to comfort you and then He COMMISSIONS you to Comfort the crushed!!
God gives “The Ministry Of Comfort” to those who have been crushed, for who better to compassionately identify with the crushed, but those who themselves have been crushed, though not perhaps in the same way, but nevertheless “afflicted”- “under great pressures”…”crushed.” It is to these He comforts and COMMISSIONS to go comfort the crushed! Perhaps you once asked the LORD to use you, and life it would seem has been cruel, unexpectedly so, and you think as one person recently shared with me they “felt” God could not use them. “BUT GOD…” He chooses what part of His “harvest” field we work in. For Paul when he wrote to the Philippians his circumstances were a prison, and the Gospel was furthered. So with you, your circumstances, illness, can be used of Him as He comforts you, He commissions you to comfort the crushed.
Fulfil your ministry where you are. Even “feeling down,” helps us identify with others and God uses even severe headaches to be a springboard to bring someone into your life and to dispense His comfort to them….. God IS Good:)