Every Time We Have Trouble

Passage to be read: 2 Corinthians 01: 03-11

"He comforts us every time we have trouble, 

so when others have trouble, 

we can comfort them with the same comfort God gives us."

( 2 Corinthians 01: 04 )

A beautiful lesson to be learned. Something that keeps us moving, something that would help us keep the pace. It is a beautiful way of looking at God's providence in our hour of need, in times of trouble.

There are so many of those moments when we stand in the midst of troubles. It may be a bad day at work, at the university, at home, and suddenly we realise that we are surrounded by issues that we do not know a way out. We realise that nothing else could take us away from the situation we are in. We begin to try out few possible ways that we may know, but we end up clueless at the height of obstacles that are around us. We would be surrounded by the walls called "troubles!"

As the apostle Paul introduces his second letter to the Corinthians, he begins by sharing a promise. And this promise widens our perspective, broadens the way we look at troubles, and strengthens our faith, so that we could look to God with hands full of His promises. 

"God comforts us every time we have trouble." As I read this particular verse, my heart just questioned "every time?" And it paved a way for me to look back into some of the worse situations in life I had come through, and, one by one, as I kept reflecting at incidents in the past, I just realised that, indeed, God has been comforting me every single time that I had troubles. Every single time! I truly believe it is just the same with you too. We may not have taken the time to realise one by one that God had delivered us, but to be honest, if we take time and go back through each and every 'trouble pages' in our book of life, we will realise that all of them ended with a punctuation mark called "God's miraculous comfort."

As children of God, as we enjoy this privilege of being comforted by Him, God calls us for something bigger, a higher purpose behind. And this great calling that we receive from Him is to share His love, His care with the people around us; one of the reasons why we have been made in God's own image. 

Just as God comforts us in times of trouble, we are also called to be a comfort for those around us. We are called to keep a watch at the situations of the people around us. It could be our neighbours, colleagues at the work place, our loving friends whether close or closer, our batch mates who never speak out or share and our own family members and relatives who may not even share a word about their condition. We are called by God to be a comfort in their lives, especially in their times of trouble. This is one of the greater calls that God has given us - to comfort the people around us in their times of troubles, with empathy, and a love that goes beyond.

It is interesting to see how Paul has combined these two as something that reflects on the other - God's comfort in our lives every time we have troubles, and the calling to be a comfort in others' lives when they go through similar situations.

I pray that God will give us the urge to run towards those who are caught in the midst of troubles, just as God comes running to us when we stand frozen, not knowing what to do, unable to take up the burden. God's comfort in our lives, every time we have troubles, let it burn in us the flame to rush to others when they are in similar situations and comfort them.

May God bless you.

Yours in Christ,