3-5All praise to the God and Father of our Master, Jesus the Messiah! Father of all mercy! God of all healing counsel! He comes alongside us when we go through hard times, and before you know it, he brings us alongside someone else who is going through hard times so that we can be there for that person just as God was there for us. We have plenty of hard times that come from following the Messiah, but no more so than the good times of his healing comfort—we get a full measure of that, too.
Starting our study of 2 Corinthians with this passage of praise seems appropriate with it being the week that we here in the United States celebrate Thanksgiving. Praise can be easy when we are in the midst of decent times. When our lives are filled with a few more blessings than the pain we experience praise seems to be able to flow easily from our lips and hearts. When we experience some pain either emotionally or physically it helps us to recognize the many ways we are blessed and it makes the pain easier to manage. But what do we do when the world seems to be weighted against us? What happens when we find ourselves crying out for mercy because the world seems to be crashing down around us and we wonder if there is anything that can possibly be good about life?
Paul says that Jesus uses us to encourage others who are going through what we have been through in those most difficult of times. The flip side of that is that Jesus also uses others who have been there before us to encourage us in the midst of our darkest times. It is a two way street of encouragement and it takes a willingness to open our lives to people so that we might be helped and that we might help others. The good news is that God can and will use whatever you are going through right now for someone else's benefit if you will allow it. Your pain and darkness will not be waisted if you allow it to be used by Jesus.
Some thoughts to ponder and share with others:
- How do you think Paul was able to continually praise God with everything that he faced?
- With the treat of torture and death facing the early believers how important do you think praise was for them on a daily basis?
- Which side of the scale do you find yourself on today, with more blessings than pain or more pain than blessings?
- What have you experienced in life that Jesus might use to encourage someone else in the midst of their pain?
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