The Comfort We Long For - The Crosswalk Devotional - July 31
The Comfort We Long For
By Keri Eichberger
Bible Reading:
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. (2 Corinthians 1:3-4)
I can clearly recall a moment last fall when I said out loud, with tear-filled eyes, I feel like God keeps stripping away comfort after comfort and I don’t understand why? Starting six months back I’d endured profound emotional discomfort through my Dad’s life-altering brain hemorrhage, an unexpected and detrimental loss of financial comfort, and then the loss of my best friend’s comforting companionship at home when my husband—who after five years of working remote—was called back into the office full-time and indefinitely. I literally felt like one thread at a time the comforts of my life were beginning to unravel beneath me.
I will thankfully say, through seasons of discomfort I had learned to understand two truths. One, that God didn’t promise comfort and ease in all situations and circumstances in life. In fact, he promised the opposite. And two, I understood that in our discomfort, God wants to remind us to look to him. So, though a bit slowly and reluctantly, I took heart in my confusion of adversity knowing this was part of the refining process that would lead to the blessings of a more resilient faith.
What has caused you discomfort? Have you had moments recently, or that you can remember, when you had comforts stripped away as well? Maybe something in your home surroundings shifted unfavorably, or you experienced a painfully stretching financial strain. Maybe you’ve dealt with the onset of a health or mental struggle that caused considerable difficulty. I bet you can recount many circumstances or memories of instances where you had to sort through and handle losses of comfort in your life.
Personally, what I didn’t know last fall when I started to wear thin as the comforts kept crumbling, was that there was even more in store. Because a month later my scoliosis, which had been paired with manageable pain for years, finally passed the tip of tolerable and became debilitating to the point of surgery a few short months later.
But before I began to lash out at God once again for another layer of comfort peeled from my path, something struck me. I had been seeking comfort in all the wrong places. I had been blindly looking to the world for sufficiency and security. Sure, I understood that God never promised comfort from the world, and that he wanted me to rely on him for comfort. But he does not want me to seek him for the world‘s comforts. He wants me to seek him for him. For HIS comforts. Because he IS the comfort.
And he is where I began to seek more and more of my comfort. He is where I am seeking my comfort today. And he is where I hope to continue to seek it. Him, who is our true source of comfort.
Intersecting Faith & Life:
Where will you choose to seek comfort? The tough truth is, inevitably, our years will deteriorate and our days will continue to contain discomfort. But the good news is this: When we truly understand, not only that worldly comfort is not promised here on Earth, but also that God is our true and only comfort, that is when we begin to truly seek him alone for the comfort for which we desire. And when we wholeheartedly seek him, we will absolutely find him, along with the true, lasting comfort of the soul we are all seeking, searching, and longing for.
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