“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ.”
- 2 Corinthians 1:3-5 -

This is a comforting faith and it is no weakness to acknowledge that all of us need at times to be comforted. We might all share in the sufferings of Christ at some level. Paul could claim that he did so ‘abundantly’ (v 5) and he was not wrong. Paul was a brave man, but his was not a false machismo. He was emotional as well as passionate, vulnerable as well as resilient. He did not believe that as an apostle of Christ, he was exempt from sufferings – quite the opposite: as a servant and apostle, he was bound to suffer with Christ (v 5). He had looked into the abyss of death (v 9), but he was delivered, and he trusted that God would again deliver him. Moreover, he saw in all of this a divine purpose: he was receiving God’s comfort in Christ, so that he might comfort others and they too might endure in the faith of Christ (v 6).

Prayer: Risen Lord Jesus, how great is the God who is full of mercy who comforts us? How thankful we are that suffering is the process of establishing us as comforters. Let us realize the plan of the Lord, who makes today's pain as a comforter and overcome hardships with thanksgiving.

(A summary of Encounter with God)