I don’t believe that God purposely causes all of the painful circumstances in life, but I do believe He wants to use each one. By allowing God to use our pain, we find purpose for our suffering and opportunity to take what was bad and use it for good.
I want to share this devotion. It comes from “Streams in the Desert, Hope for Hurting Hearts” by L.B Cowman. I read this several years ago and have never forgotten it. It has proven to be true in my own life.
Essential Training for God’s Divine Ministry of Comfort
Store up comfort. This was the prophet Isaiah’s mission. The world is full of hurting and comfortless hearts. But before you will be competent for this lofty ministry, you must be trained. And your training is extremely costly, for to make it complete, you too must endure the same afflictions that are wringing countless hearts of tears and blood. Consequently, your own life becomes the hospital ward where you are taught the divine art of comfort. You will be wounded so that in the binding up of your wounds by the Great Physician, you may learn how to render first aid to the wounded everywhere.
Do you wonder why you are having to experience some great sorrow? Over the next ten years you will find many others afflicted in the same way. You will then tell them how you suffered and were comforted. As the story unfolds, God will apply the anesthetic He once used on you to them. Then in the eager look followed by the gleam of hope that chases the shadow of despair from the soul, you will know why you were afflicted. And you will bless God for the discipline that filled your life with such a treasure of experience and helpfulness.
God comforts us not to make us comfortable but to make us comforters.
John Henry Jowett
