To Encourage You

2 Corinthians 1:7-8 “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. “

You would think that some people never have a trouble in the world.  It seems like they are always happy.  They don’t have any struggles, at least that you are aware of, because they never let you get close enough to see past the veneer. And it is sometimes Christians, people that are supposed to have all the answers about life’s deepest issues, that are tempted to project a façade that all is well for we are so very blessed! Some even believe that to say anything negative, to ever tell anyone about an illness, financial trial, or any other difficulty, is to show a lack of faith.  It’s the “name it and claim it” belief, that if you only say positive things all the time, no matter how negative they may actually be, then positive things will always happen.  It’s almost like magic; we just say the right things and the right and good things will come to us. 

How different that is from the example of the great apostle Paul in the verses above.  In these two sentences Paul is honest and open about the sufferings he knew the Corinthian church was experiencing, and he is also honest and open about his own sufferings as he reaches out to them. As we read about Paul’s life, so often we read about the incredible suffering he endured for the sake of the gospel. Listen as he tells us that “Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to fall, and I am not indignant? If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness”(2 Corinthians 11:24-30). 

Paul was truthful with those he ministered to.  He didn’t look at life with rose-colored glasses. He didn’t shrug off the difficulties as “no big deal.”  In his honesty with the Corinthians he demonstrated a great empathy toward them, for he acknowledges that he, like them, had had many struggles.  But he’s not morose about it.  He doesn’t talk about all this as if there’s no hope. He doesn’t have a “woe is me” attitude about his past and present trials.  No, in all of it he expresses great confidence in the Lord. He acknowledges that just as his struggles have been “abundant,” the comfort that he has received in those struggles from the Lord have likewise been “abundant” (2 Corinthians 1:5).  It is because Paul had seen God’s sustaining power demonstrated to him time after time in his own weakness that he could be confident that the Corinthian believers would endure their own sufferings because of the wonderful grace of God.  That’s why Paul could encourage them by telling them “Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort.” 

You see, it’s as we share the trials of life with one another in the deepest and darkest times of life that “the rubber meets the road” in the Christian experience.  We won’t be much help to anyone if we refuse to be honest with them about our own lives.  We all have “thorns in the flesh” that expose our weaknesses.  But it’s often those very weaknesses that God uses to humble us and then open our eyes as well as the eyes of others in our lives who observe us, that it is God’s power, not ours, that is the key to living out our faith. 

May God help us as believers to be honest with one another, following the example of Paul, and thereby allow the Lord to use us 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” (2 Corinthians 1:4).