Comfort
“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…” — 2 Corinthians 1:3 As a child of the ’80s, I grew up watching classic sitcoms like Family Ties, Different Strokes, and Full House. Looking back, what amazes me about these shows is that no matter what kind of problems the characters faced, everything would somehow resolve in thirty minutes. If only real life was like an 80’s sitcom! Sadly, in the real world, most of our troubles last longer than thirty minutes. And they rarely (if ever) resolve in a nice, tidy fashion. Many of us find ourselves in the middle of adversity right now. We can’t wave a magic wand to make things better. We can’t escape. And we seriously wonder how we’re going to make it. Biblically speaking, the word for this kind of difficulty is, ‘thlipsis.’ This term wasn’t used for minor inconveniences. Instead,...