It’s not what you think …
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 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
We are more likely to notice and focus on negative experiences than positive ones. This means that a negative event, like criticism, has a greater emotional impact than a positive one, such as compliments. The National Science Foundation reports that an astonishing 80% of our thoughts are negative and 95% are repetitive. That’s an incredible amount of negative, recurring thoughts!
From a spiritual warfare perspective, the battle for our souls is primarily fought within our minds. Considering our predisposition to negative thinking, it’s clear why our adversary targets this arena, sowing negativity in already fertile ground. Romans 12:2 states, “be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind,” and Philippians 2:5 instructs us to “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.” These scriptures emphasize the importance of mental transformation; in other words, we need to change the way that we think.
Let’s discuss the suffering of a believer. We understand that the righteous will face persecution; salvation doesn’t guarantee a life of constant bliss. So why do we, in our human nature, instinctively anticipate the worst during times of suffering? What if I told you there are three primary reasons for our suffering, one of which we’ll explore today?
“He 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 1:4). God desires to be glorified through our lives. To achieve this, He orchestrates or permits circumstances where we experience His comfort in unexpected ways. This preparation then equips us to share our experience of His support with others. You are never more qualified to tell someone that God is capable until you have experienced it for yourself!
Insight
Consider that your suffering may be more than what it appears to be on the surface. Perhaps God needs to uniquely qualify you to be his witness to someone in need.
