Morning Brew: Thursday, Nov 12

Who can you comfort today? Did you know that this is a task and privilege for all Christians? Look at how Paul describes this glorious responsibility to the early believers in Corinth:

3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. 2 Corinthians 1:3-4

Compassion and comfort are central to who God is. He created empathy. He is the definition of compassion. He sets the standard for comfort. At the core, our God is love, love displayed to us in compassion and comfort. He hurts when we hurt. He cries when we cry. Just as a heart of a parent breaks when your child is hurting, so God’s heart breaks when we hurt. He is the God of all comfort and the Father of compassion.

Since we are created in the image of our compassionate Father, we have the divine spark of compassion within us. We are created to love, to care, to nurture, to comfort. When we refuse to help those around us, when we withhold empathy from those in need, when we withdraw our hand when others seek to hold it, we are denying the divine spark of compassion God placed within us.

That’s why Paul tells the believers in Corinth that just as God is compassionate, so are we to “comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.” So who can you comfort today? Who is hurting around you? Is it a child (maybe not even yours) that needs an encouraging word? A neighbor or coworker walking through a difficult sickness that you can bring comfort to? Perhaps an aging parent that simply needs someone to sit with them? How can you leverage the divine spark of compassion within you to give comfort to someone else today?

Prayer: God, please bring to my mind and show me who I can show compassion and comfort to today.