Focal passage: Isaiah 49:1-13
About three weeks ago, I experienced suffering unlike anything I have dealt with in 20 years. Though my test was negative, my doctor believes I likely had the COVID-19 virus. I was in bed for four days with fever, chills, headaches and body aches. During that time, I was miserable. I felt like I had been cut off from the land of the living. In the midst of all of that, however, I experienced God’s faithfulness and Him providing His comfort.
Most of that time, He provided His comfort through His appointed servant, my wife, Melanie. She brought food to our room, brought me medicine when it was time to take it, and kept a stash of water bottles and snacks beside me until I was delivered from that miserable land.
God spoke to His people through the prophet Isaiah and told them of His compassion and care for them. They were in the midst of suffering with more to come. But God would not abandon them there.
The Lord, out of His great compassion, would provide a comfort that would call for rejoicing from all who would observe it.
Even now, we experience God’s comfort through His promised deliverer, our Lord Jesus Christ. We also have His Holy Spirit. Yes, we still suffer as we walk in this fallen world. But, are you living in the comfort of God, as He is faithful and has not forgotten us? Are you looking for that day when those from every tribe and tongue will experience together that greatest comfort of being in His presence forever?