Comfort Connection

We were built for human connection - person to person and face to face. But living in a bent and twisted world, those connections don’t always work well. It is not surprising, then, that many people run from true connectedness with others, and hide, whether in isolation, or alternate realities, often provided by screen technologies.

But we were not built for screens. It is not a meeting of souls. Oh, it can tickle the fancy or distract from the pain of loneliness or the frustration of people. But screens don’t heal or foster growth.

The apostle Paul’s second letter to the church in Corinth seeks to mend his connection with these people. The relationship has been bruised, and Paul is seeking to re-establish a connection that is distinctively Christian. This connection will not happen because they belong to the same political party or share the same hobbies. It will occur because they share the same view of the world that centers in One Key Person - in Jesus, God’s Son and man’s Savior.

The connection that we find in 2 Corinthians chapter 1 is a comfort connection. The word “comfort” shows up 10 times in vv. 3-7. It is a passage that admits that life is often hard, for you, and for me. And it is a word that assures that we each care for the other in the midst of life’s difficulties. Paul’s use of the word “comfort” assumes that it is something that we all need when experiencing affliction, and it further assumes that we are all better off for offering it to others. It is just a first step in engaging in face to face, “soul” encounters.

Again, many people avoid either receiving comfort and/or offering it. The reasons may be complex. But people, let’s be honest. We live in a broken world, and no one is a comfort expert, offering it perfectly. Only God has the resource to comfort from a bottomless heart and an endless love. And we only comfort well when we draw on this resource. And even then, I find that the self likes to get in the way. To coin a proverb: Don’t reject a kind word just because of bad grammar.

Comfort allows our relationships to be “buffered” rather than “brittle.” A “brittle” relationship is easily fractured. The slightest disappointment results in an unforgivable offense that ends the relationship, pushing the damaged psyche off into exile. On the other hand, a “buffered” relationship trusts in the good and godly intentions of the other person, however imperfect he/she may be, and accepts their care as a gift, knowing that the gift of comfort ministered from human hearts issues first of all from “the Father of mercies and God of all comfort” (2 Corinthians 1:3).