Have you ever had to wrestle with certain Scriptures? To be honest, I’ve had to wrestle with the thoughts of God comforting us, so that we can comfort others with “the same comfort that God has given us”. I didn’t understand the deeper heart of the Father. I’m called to serve in inner healing ministry. The enemy tried to use that section of Scripture to distort God’s heart and tell me that God put me through several traumas specifically to wound me, so that He could heal me, comfort me, and then use me to comfort others. The enemy lied to me and tried to get me to believe that God, Himself, abused me. Should be no surprise there, since the first mention of the devil in Scripture finds him casting doubt upon God’s goodness in order to lead Adam and Eve into sin.
Many of us who have been through severe trauma find ourselves wrestling with God and asking Him where He was, or why He allowed the bad things to happen to us. The truth is that God doesn’t abuse anyone. He always has our best eternal interests in mind. Unfortunately, some humans don’t. We are living in a fallen world and sometimes bad people do bad things to us. God doesn’t violate anyone’s free will. One time I asked Him why He didn’t violate my abuser’s free will. That would have kept me safe. He lovingly said, “If I violate one person’s free will, I’m not safe at all.” That made sense. Our abusers never gave us a chance to say no. God does. That makes Him safe. Another time I asked Him where He was when I was abused. He showed me that He was standing right next to me. I got mad and said, “If you were right there when I was being abused and you didn’t stop it, that makes You an accomplice!” He showed me that He didn’t want me to be abused, and that He was actually protecting my personhood – who He knit me together in my mother’s womb to be – during the abuse. My abusers did harm my body, but they weren’t able to harm who God made me to be. No human can stop our hearts from being transformed into the character of Jesus Christ as we yield our hearts to Him. No one. No matter what they do to us.
As I continued to grow in my healing process, I began to realize the deeper heart of God in the comforting process. Yes, He comforts us in all our troubles so we can comfort others with the same comfort that we’ve been comforted with; but the greater purpose in receiving comfort is that we grow deeper in our relationship with the Father as we become more like Christ. Comforting others is merely the fruit of receiving comfort from Him and becoming like Him.
