God of Consolation..

Grief
by Dennis Pollock

Service by sharing: Jemi, Heavenly Angels for DALY TEACHERS FOUNDATION

Life just doesn’t seem fair! Despite our clichés like “things always work out” and “life has a way of evening itself out,” anyone with any sense and who is even slightly observant will discover that real life doesn’t always work that way. Wicked, covetous men sometimes live long, healthy, prosperous lives and good men sometimes die way too soon. Sweet, good little girls sometimes grow up and live out their lives as lonely spinsters, while naughty girls sometimes end up with rich husbands and beautiful houses filled with children.

Talent is often rewarded but not always. Sometimes talented people, for various reasons, go ignored and unnoticed, and live lives of frustration and disappointment.

We look at others and become depressed. Why are they so beautiful when I am so plain? Why is it that they can be so at ease with people, while I constantly feel awkward? Why did they get blessed with such a brilliant mind while I am stuck being so dull and slow?

Most of us are realistic enough not to expect perfection. We recognize that we are bound to be stronger in some areas than in others. But we find it odious that we should have major deficiencies, significant weaknesses, and substantial difficulties which keep us from experiencing that blissful, peaceful, happy life we feel we really deserve – certainly more so than that other person who has more than us and yet isn’t nearly so nice as we are. It just isn’t fair!

Of course God could fix things quickly if He chose to. The minute we prayed for a sharper mind, or better social skills, or a husband, or more friends, He could instantly zap us with an immediate answer and erase our disappointments. He could and He sometimes does, but He usually doesn’t. Dull people usually go on being dull, poor people being poor, ugly people being ugly, and weak people being weak. And if the answer comes, it normally comes gradually, and as a result of some work on our part. But sometimes it doesn’t seem to come at all.
God our Consoler

For such folks, and to some degree for every one of us, one of the greatest insights we can gain once we are safely in Jesus Christ, is an understanding that our God is the God of consolation. He may not always relieve that pressure we face, He may not remove that burden we bear, He may not enhance that sense of weakness we live with, but He will find creative and powerful ways to console us in our suffering and weakness. The word consolation is a great word and one with which we should all be familiar.

Consolation is that which loving friends try to provide when someone they care about has been through an appalling time of pain or loss and is terribly discouraged. We want to somehow make up for their loss. We want to say something or do something or give them something that will help ease their pain and make them smile again.

As humans we are pretty limited in our ability to console. Our words seem so futile, our gestures so meaningless. But there is a Consoler who is vastly better at it than we. In the Scriptures God is called “The God of all comfort,” and He is spoken of freely as the One who brings consolation to the suffering and the discouraged.

Paul writes to the Corinthians:
For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounds through Christ... And our hope for you is steadfast, because we know that as you are partakers of the sufferings, so also you will partake of the consolation (2 Corinthians 1:5,7).

Here we find consolation associated with suffering. Notice the use of both present and future tense.

The sufferings are present tense: “As you are partakers of the sufferings…”

But the promised consolation is future tense: “So also you will partake of the consolation.”

At times we feel as though God hardly notices our suffering and misery, but in truth He is keenly aware of what we are going through, and has special consolations for each and every difficulty, tragedy, disappointment, humiliation, weakness, and attack that we will face as we travel through this harsh world. Some of these consolations will be given us in this life, and others will be revealed in the next.

May God Comfort us with His divine Consolation.