This is the second post in a series on adversity. This series is the result of a recent health scare I went through when I suffered a retinal tear in my left eye, and it reflects what I learned about the Lord from the place of adversity.
After realizing Sunday night that I was dealing with a potential loss of vision, I called my legal assistant and told her what was going on. I told her I wouldn’t be coming into the office in the morning, and I told her about a few pending urgent work matters so she could deal with them in my absence.
I tried to sleep Sunday night but I tossed and turned. In the morning I prayed and got in the Word. I was so worried, that when I prayed I said, “Holy Spirit, you are the Great Comforter, I pray that you would comfort me.” I waited, but I felt nothing. I prayed some more, and I still felt nothing.
Then a little later that morning before I left for the doctor I talked to my legal assistant again. She is a Christian, and she said she had prayed and the Lord told her to tell me, “Don’t worry; it will be okay.” It was so comforting, and it was exactly what I needed to hear.
I had always thought – and I think now, wrongly – that when Jesus talked about the Holy Spirit being the Comforter, He meant the Holy Spirit would comfort us directly and personally. I hadn’t really considered how the Holy Spirit might comfort us through others.
Here’s the thing though; even though I was very thankful to my legal assistant for praying, hearing the Lord, and communicating what she heard to me, I was most thankful to the Lord because I recognized that ultimately the comfort was from Him.
Had I sought comfort from others first, any comfort I would have received would have seemed merely human, but because I sought it from the Lord, I recognized it as coming from Him, which made the comfort so much more comforting than any human can provide. GS