Seeing God In The Storm

As the islands await our second hurricane of the year (the same weekend as the Overflow Conference we’ve been eagerly planning for the last two years!), my heart was having trouble resting in God’s sovereignty. Very early this morning I went back to 2 Corinthians 1, where I always find myself in stressful times.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort. For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself.  Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. (2 Cor 1:3-9)

You see the word “comfort” a lot in this chapter, but Paul has a very unique idea of comfort. He doesn’t find comfort on a recliner in his living room, or on a beach or golf course, or eating dinner at his favorite restaurant, or any of the places we normally find comfort. He experiences God’s comfort most when he’s in the middle of affliction. Pain. Suffering. Stress. Anxiety. When he’s in the middle of the storm.

There are three possible responses you can have when life doesn’t go the way you wanted it to:

  1. Ignore it. Just grit your teeth and try to keep living life the way you always have. Hope that if you ignore it, maybe it will go away. I tried that once, when I saw a few termites flying around in our house. A month later, our roof was ready to cave in.
  2. Escape it. Change your external circumstances to make life go more like the way you wanted it to. Get a new job, move to a new place, find a new friend, find a new life. Whatever it is that’s making life hard, just get it out of your life. I’ve tried that a few times as well, like the time I quit a job because I couldn’t stand my boss. The boss at my new job was even worse!
  3. Experience God in it. That’s Paul’s approach. Don’t ignore affliction, or try to escape it, experience it and then experience God’s comfort in it.

And Paul reminds us why God sends storms in the first place. He sovereignly allows difficult, painful, stressful situations in life along with happy, stress-free times: “Who has spoken and it came to pass, unless the Lord has commanded it? Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and bad come?” (Lam. 3). And in 2 Corinthians 1, Paul gives us a number of reasons why God sends the storms:

  1. So we can experience his comfort. … who comforts us in all our affliction ... God knows that our hearts tend to look for comfort in every place other than his arms. But no relationship, position, experience, or substance will ever provide true and lasting comfort. So sometimes God need to forcefully drive us into the one place where true comfort can be found.
  2. So we can comfort other people.   … so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.  … God gives us pain so he can then give us his comfort, and he does all that so we can turn around and offer the same comfort to other people. If you went through a painful divorce, and you experienced God’s comfort, now you have the ability to comfort other people going through the same thing. If you had a dream that got crushed — you didn’t get into the school you wanted, or you didn’t get the job you wanted, or you got the job you wanted and then it turned out to be a nightmare — and then you experienced God’s comfort, now you know how to comfort other people in the same situation.
  3. To make us desperately dependent on God.  …  we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God  …  Paul was just like the rest of us: he was tempted to put his confidence in his own skills, abilities, knowledge, and strength. In tough situations, we usually respond with instinctive self-dependence. When you get a letter from the IRS, saying that you owe $20,000 that you don’t have — plus interest — what’s your first instinct? Is it to go to an accountant, or is it to go to God? Paul seems to be saying that God repeatedly gives us painful, stressful situations so we start learning to rely on him, to the point that it becomes a new instinct. So the next time the IRS sends a letter, instead of plotting, you start praying. You ask God for comfort and wisdom. And then, it’s like spiritual muscle memory. The next time a storm comes, you instinctively go to God.

And then you gather other people to pray along with you. As Paul says in verse 11, “You also must help us by prayer, so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many.”

Amazing! God sends us storms so that we’ll lean on him in prayer, and invite others to pray with us, and the the result is that they will see God answer their prayers and give him even more thanksgiving, praise and glory.

This weekend, let’s pray for God’s comfort and give thanks for God’s goodness.