What is Comfort?

Comfort can mean different things to different people. Some people picture comfort as a warm hug, a pillow, and a bowl of soup. Other people see it as having loads of money and never having to worry about finances. The love of family. Freedom from stress.

I had two conversations about comfort this week and during one of them, something from my childhood memory slowly perked its head up in my brain. I had a definition of comfort in my heart but was struggling to remember the words so, after looking at the wrong catechism first, I finally caved and looked up the Heidelberg Catechism, which I memorized as a kid:

Q&A 1
Q. What is your only comfort in life and in death?
A. That I am not my own, but belong—body and soul, in life and in death—to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.

He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood, and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil. He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven; in fact, all things must work together for my salvation.

Because I belong to him, Christ, by his Holy Spirit, assures me of eternal life and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him.

I will be the first one to say that I LOVE pillows and blankets as much as the next person but this is true comfort, friends! The things we have on earth can never satisfy us, no matter how much we chase after them, but Christ can. He is the source of comfort for our hearts!

In the midst of COVID-19, would you remember with me what Christ has done for us? Would you remember the God we serve and that we belong to the One in control of everything? I was listening to something this week that reminded me that we don’t live in a Plan B world. Everything is Plan A, happening according to the Father’s will. There are no what-ifs or maybes. He knows it all.

That is comforting.

 

The Idols of Life

If you don’t live in Ohio (or northeast US for that matter), maybe you don’t know that we had a wonderful, huge snow storm come through this weekend. It was great. Everything was closed, no traveling, the works. Which for someone who LOVES snow, that means that I spent the days with friends: sled riding, watching movies, playing games, and making waffles. It was superb.

It also meant that all the churches were closed on Sunday so my best friend and I decided to watch a sermon online. The one we watched was about idols. The argument was that although people may have a variety of “surface” idols in their life (aka: food, money, kids, clothes, cars, you-name-it), they all boil down to four “core” idols. Have to say, I couldn’t really find a whole lot of Scriptural backing for this idea but the logic was okay.

The first idol he mentioned was Comfort and the second was Approval. As he explained I really examined my heart and thought, “Nah, I don’t think those apply a whole lot. Probably sometimes.”

The third idol was Control. As soon as he said that word, I look at Natalie and said, “Weeeeelllll, this has been great but I just remembered that…” Yeah, I didn’t get away with it. She pulled me down and said that if she had to listen to her idols I had to sit through mine. *sigh*

We both know. I like control. I’m very organized and structured naturally and it gives me a feeling that I can control the world. One of the things he mentioned in the video is that people with this idol often will do everything because they would rather do it themselves and be SURE it will get done than have someone else do it. Ouch, man. That hurt. I literally winced.

And the problem with this idol is the blatant lack of trust is displays. A lack of dependency and trust in the Lord. Like somehow I can do things better than he can and I know better than the Creator of the World. But I don’t. And boy did God have to YANK that control right out of my hands in order to teach me that! These last couple of years have taught me just how little control I have. (And how much he DOES have!)

Sometimes I need a good smack…err…reminder that I’m not in control and of Who is. And of how grateful I should be for that!

“Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand.” Prov. 19:21

P.S. The fourth idol was Power. 🙂

 

Thoughts On Comforting Others

Through all of this I have learned there are many different kinds of people when it comes to comforting someone who is in a difficult situation. A few examples:

-There are the people who tell you to suck it up, buttercup. If I was honest, I am usually one of these people. You’ll be fine, keep going, get over it. (Actually, I usually say, “Drink more water; that cures everything.” Turns out it doesn’t. Huh, who knew?) Sometimes though, things aren’t fine.

-There are the people who toss Bible verses at you. The people who don’t really know what’s going on so they just grab verses to tell you. They mean well; they really do. But let me tell you, coming from someone who has been through something like this, it doesn’t always help. This sounds terrible so I’m trying to find the right words here. Most of the time, I already knew the truth. I knew what God’s word had to say and to have someone quote the verses to me (especially if they didn’t understand my situation) was not usually helpful.

-Then there are the people who understand. Most often, these people have also been through rough times and know how to comfort others. They know that what you really need is a long hug and that words are not always the answer. They know when it is time to talk and when you just need to sit and cry together. God has blessed me with several friends like this.

The Bible tells us to weep with those who weep but how often do we really take the time to know someone’s situation well enough to do that? I don’t want to be that top person anymore. I want to be someone who is compassionate towards others because each person I meet is going through something that I know nothing about. I have been so convicted about how judgmental and harsh I was before this. Everyone struggles with things that no one can see. I want to be slow to judge others by what I see. And I want to be quick to love. Quick to listen. Quick to share Christ.