Dear Precious Friends,
On this beautiful new day, this gift we've been given, I am always so blessed that I can share with you what I need to hear. It's been very difficult to walk through this difficult season and see all that is happening in our world. Many of us have lost precious loved ones and are trying to put the pieces back together. Our hearts break when we see the images of Ukraine and the Russian invasion and such sadness with all the news coming at us. I am extra sad today that my sweet little Charlie boy, our 10 pound little Yorkie & fur family member passed unexpectedly taking a piece of our hearts with him. He has been such a gift from God to help us through so much loss we've experienced and the deep grief we've had.
So where do we go for our help? Our help comes from the Lord. We go to God's word, our absolute truth for encouragement as we fix our eyes on Jesus. Our hope is in Him... our hope is that we know the rest of the story and one day as believers we will have no more pain, no more suffering, and we are heaven bound.
The Israelites certainly know what it's like to live in exile and walk through the most difficult of times.
As we open the 40th chapter of the book of Isaiah. The Israelites—God’s chosen people—are living in exile in Babylon. They have been there for seventy years. Their nation has been destroyed, Jerusalem lies in ruins. And then, in that hopeless situation, God once again spoke a word to his people. God sent a message that gave Israel new life and new hope. Suddenly, this incredible word from the Lord rang out, “Comfort, comfort my people.” That’s what he told his servant, the prophet Isaiah. “Tell them to get ready. They’re going home.” When God speaks comfort He not only changes how we feel; He changes how we are. Biblical comfort doesn’t just give us an emotional lift. When the Lord comforts His people He takes away our sorrow, our pain and despair, not by helping us to forget our troubles for a little while, but by dealing with the root cause of that trouble. God comforts us by delivering us out of our despair.
There are seasons of devastation that we all go through where we are in desperate need of our Heavenly Father’s love and comfort. We must let Him carry us through these seasons. We were never meant to shoulder these burdens on our own. God wants to comfort us with His tender love, so that we might be able to pass on the comfort that we have received to others when they need His love.
“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. For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.”
2 Corinthians 1:3-7 NIV
We are to come next to God, let Him comfort us. When we are weary and don't know what to do...we move to God, lean upon Him, let Him wrap us in His arms. He will comfort us. When we are at the end of ourselves, too frozen to move... We must turn and cry out to Him, share our thoughts, He hears us. He is the merciful Father and the source of all comfort.
Amen.
Source: God's word, Holy Spirit, Daily Devo
