This week’s Pastor’s Ponderings is a challenging message written by a Jesus Follower. Enjoy!
Am I Comfortable or a Comforter?
I’m a great believer in the principal that if I don’t care for my own health I’ll be no good to help others. So, I set my ‘self-preservation’ plans in place and sit back to enjoy when, niggle, niggle, niggle a person comes to mind; someone I’d promised to visit or a text comes through…when are you free?
Know the feeling?
A month or two back, when I was reading through Corinthians, I came to an all-too-familiar passage in 2 Cor 1 where it talks of God as being ‘the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort.’ How often I’ve turned to these words but, more importantly, how often I’ve felt these words. I’ve run into my Father’s arms and known that comfort for myself or felt his arms around me when I’ve been too distressed to pray. Awesome!
However, this is not where we’re to stay. Oh no! He comforts me, yes! but not to stay comfortable. His purpose of revealing His comfort to me is so that I may comfort others! His intention isn’t to make me comfortable but to grow me into a comforter. Big difference!
Jesus sought time with his Father; he sought time to rest. He made sure his disciples had times to rest but when the crowds disturbed him, he never turned them away. Instead, he tended to their needs.
Even when he was totally exhausted and asleep in the boat through that terrible storm, Jesus got up to comfort his distressed disciples who, by the way, should have known better than to be distressed with Jesus there!
When I was in my teens, we sang a song where the words went something like this…
Let me burn out for thee dear Lord; burn and wear out for thee.
Don’t let me rust or my life be a failure my God to thee.
Use me and all I have dear Lord and draw me so close to thee
That I feel the throb of the great heart of God till my life burns out for thee.
As a young person on fire for God I made this my theme song but then, for a few decades, I dropped it. I saw it as dangerous; a major threat to my mental health!
However, there is an underlying truth in this prayer that has got me thinking again…perhaps it’s because I don’t see roaring flames or a spectacular bonfire but an insignificant candle sending out its flickering flame until there is no more wick to burn.
(you can find this song on you tube if you’d like to listen to the challenge of all the words😊)