Comfort balances troubles

There is a joy known only to those who suffer. Years ago, we experienced a family crisis involving one of our children and a friend. As soon as the bad news came to us, we should have been devastated, but with barely a prayer, perhaps breathed more than spoken, we were filled with joy.

It was odd. We could not turn it off. We were calm and should not have been. The friend’s parents were hysterical. We told them God was in control. For us, this was obvious; only You could have given us the emotions we were experiencing.

In a few hours, the crisis was over. The children were okay and everyone relieved. However, we never forgot that unexpected peace and joy in what should have produced the opposite. This was the first time, but You have done this more than once.

In tonight’s devotional reading, Spurgeon writes about the balance of suffering with comfort. He uses this verse . . . 

For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. (2 Corinthians 1:5)

I’d never realized my experiences as “sharing in Christ’s sufferings” until recognizing that You have ‘children’ who get into trouble also. You know what this is like. The Bible says that You identify with my struggles for You experience all that I do as part of Your incarnation.

I can also identify with Your sufferings. You were despised, rejected, mocked, ignored, mistrusted and more. People still reject You, and any child of God who strives to be like You will also be rejected and mocked by others.

Yet this is not the point that Spurgeon makes. He says that the greater the weight of suffering on one side of the balance beam, the greater the weight of comfort that You put on the other. For instance, You give joy and peace to balance out anxiety and fear.

Spurgeon gives a reason for this reality. He writes that trials make more room for consolation because God makes a person’s hearts greater by using great troubles. Deep trouble creates a deeper reservoir for comfort.

Not only that, if You find my heart filled with my own ways of comforting myself, You use the trials of life to break and wean me from those things that I trust instead of You. Then, when those trivial things are gone, there is more room for grace. Spurgeon also says that the humbler I am, the more comfort You will give, because I am more fitted to receive it.

He gives one more reason that peace and joy can be present in my troubles. It is because during those times I tend to drop all else and run to You. Trials bring me into greater intimacy and the closer I get to You, the more I know Your grace and comfort.

I don’t seek trials. No one has to do that because life brings them. Yet I do not have to fear them or go to great extremes to protect myself. When trouble happens, You will not let the balance tip so far as to destroy my hope. You are with me always and You know how to keep enough weight on the other end of that beam.

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