Talking About Jesus, Bible, Ministry and Culture

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, 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 1:3-4

As I am preparing for my training pastors how to counsel PTSD/Trauma victims in Ukraine, I certainly feel inadequate. What can you tell someone that has lost everything including their homes, livelihood and family members? To tell you the truth, not much, just listen. But what is great to know is that we have a God who can empathize with our weaknesses (See Hebrews 4:15), and is Himself a ‘mighty counselor‘ (Isaiah 9:6). Suffering trauma is never fun, but according to Jesus it is inevitable in a fallen world (John 16:33). The beauty of our suffering is the fact it is not in vain, and God is using everything to His glory! We may not see what He is doing, but we can trust He is in control, and using the world’s crushing pain for a reason.

What we can know however is not only that God is using our pain, but He is the ‘Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in our affliction.’ We can take our pain to God and in return learn to use that pain to ‘comfort those who are in any affliction.’ This reflexive action is how we are motivated to do anything we do. We give, because Christ gave to us (See 2 Corinthians 5:21; 8:9). Our motivation for anything we do, comes from the grace we have been given by our Father in Heaven. Such a beautiful thing to know; that while we may not understand why everything that has happened to us, happened, we can know that we can in turn heal that pain, by ministering to others who are in pain.