PART 2
COMFORT
Kevin Martin – 11-26-02
Those who mourn will be comforted. Comfort is the missing ingredient that leaves a child in the pain of those moments of loss, hurt, rejection, abuse or abandonment. All such moments that are comforted are relieved of the emotional pain and they are not remembered as highly significant events, even if they once were. Children can be comforted even when the event is very traumatic.
What do you think the effects would be on a 3 or 4 year-old child who steps on a yellow-jacket nest and gets stung so many places that bees are found in his underwear? Would that be traumatic? It could be for some, even for some watching. Yet it was not traumatic for me. I was comforted immediately.
My oldest sister, 14 at the time, heard me crying, came running from an upper field and rescued me. She grabbed me up and ran to the house. There she quickly covered every sting with mud and killed or removed every bee. In the process she spoke encouraging words, soothing words and never once acted fearful about the bee stings.
Since then I have been stung by bees, including yellow-jackets two or three times as a child and teenager. I have no fear of bees or of being stung. I have no reaction to bee stings. If you know that allergies and other physical reactions to bees and other insects are fear induced, then you understand that I was a target to develop an allergic reaction to bee stings, especially yellow- jacket stings. But the comfort I received prevented fear from making this a traumatic event in my life. Love did not have to cast out fear, for it had prevented fear.
Compare that to the ancestral curse in my family of passing out when we would see blood, get an injection (with a needle), or have to have our blood taken. The fear of these things was passed down and every occasion where a needle was involved became traumatic for me. The comfort that was offered then was not effective for fear was not being removed. As my family members tried to soothe my fears, they were transmitting their own fears. Their attempts to comfort were not mixed with faith but with fear.
We have had fearful, painful, traumatic moments in our lives that were not sufficiently comforted. Those moments have become painful memories around which reservoirs of pain and fear have formed. These were the foundation blocks for strongholds of fear, hurt, bitterness and ungodly thinking that have been built up in our hearts and minds.
God is ready to come into those memories and not only remove the bees and pull out the stingers, but apply the balm of Gilead (healing salve) to the wound and soothingly comfort the heart and mind with words of love, acceptance, affection and assurance that because He is here, everything is going to be okay. Daddy is here. Nothing can harm you.
To mourn is to bring your pain to God. To be comforted is to be consoled in your loss that God is still with you and encouraged that He will restore the joy of your life. We learn again and again that God is the real source of love, life, peace and joy in righteousness.
To be comforted you must agree for comfort to come. Just because you need to be comforted and even ask to be comforted does not mean that you are agreeing with God to give you comfort. If you mourn you will be comforted, according to the word of God. Therefore, mourning is agreement with God for Him to comfort you. If you are not being comforted, you need to examine the activity you call mourning. Does God call it mourning?
Then Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah’s tent; and he took Rebekah and she became his wife, and he loved her. So Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death. Genesis 24:67
Isaac mourned the loss of his mother. He was able to be comforted, however, in Rebecca, his wife. Earlier we saw that when Jacob lost his son, Joseph, he could not be comforted. Jacob held unto his grief as a blanket of sorrow. He comforted himself in his anger. He was blaming someone for his loss. I believe he blamed God.
Isaac could be comforted, for he was not holding unto his grief as some kind of proof that he had been wronged. He was not blaming someone nor waiting for someone to come and make his loss right. He was willing to release his sorrow and return to life. He could be comforted.
A person who cannot be comforted is holding unto his grief, waiting to be recompensed for his loss. “Someone needs to make this right for me. Until they do, I have a right to walk around miserable and make everyone else miserable. I will hold unto my pain until someone acknowledges I was robbed and the transgressor is made to pay.” Isaac had none of this in his heart, so he could be comforted. In the ministry of comfort, it is impossible to be of help until the person lets all those who have offended him off the hook. In speaking of love to the Corinthians, Paul says love thinks no evil.
does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil. 1 Corinthians 13:5
The Contemporary English Version says, “It doesn’t keep a record of wrongs.” This is an essential attitude of the heart to receive God’s comfort.
He is despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Isaiah 53:3a
Jesus is very familiar with sorrow and grief. He has had to grieve the loss of our love, our affections and our lives since Adam. Every one of us is precious to Him. Yet He will not force anyone of us to love Him and to let Him save us.
We must choose Him. Jesus mourns everyday as He watches men who have rejected Him die without Him.
And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him Isaiah 53:3b.
We hide our faces from the very One Who can understand because He is acquainted with grief. We will not turn to He Who is most able to console us and return us to joy. Instead we despise Him. We blame Him as though it were His fault.
Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. Isaiah 53:4
This is past tense. Jesus has already borne the grief you presently bear and He has already carried away your sorrows. If you want to continue to bear your grief and carry your sorrows, He will not stop you. If you want to remain angry and miserable, He will allow you to stay that way. It is your choice, not His. You cannot blame Him for the destruction you are enduring.
But if you would like Him to bring you into the reality of His finished work on Calvary, He will. Let me explain the process. If you will simply trust Him in this and see that it works, we can work out the details of theology later.
1st: Go within your memory to the place of greatest pain and loss. Ask God to take you to that place within your soul. Then ask Him to help you be in touch with your pain and sorrow.
2nd: Ask God to show you any unresolved bitterness. If you sense anger or resentment, ask Him to show you who it is directed towards. There may be more than one person you need to forgive. Allow the possibility that you may be angry with yourself and/or God. Once you see where your anger is going, forgive each one, ask God to forgive you for your judgment against that person and renounce the judgment. This is most important, especially if you have judged yourself or God.
3rd: Pray in this manner. “Lord, I am powerless against this sorrow and grief, but I am willing for You to take it from me. I open my heart to You. I yield my sorrow and grief to you and I ask you to take them from me. I will wait here before You, until it is gone.”
Recognize that He will not take all of it. He will take most of the grief and leave you the portion that He knows it is wise for you to carry. Grief and sorrow are not evil. They can be useful motivators toward God and His will. Let God remove the unnecessary portions of grief and sorrow. Some of the process of grieving is totally unnecessary because it comes out of deception. The first stage of grief people normally go through is denial. Denial is simply the soul’s agreement with deception that the loss did not really occur. It did occur, so why spend months of your life pretending it did not? Let God speak His truth to your soul and remove the heavy burdens that deceptions can add to the grieving process and return to life and joy that much sooner.
If a child is born into a family of self-centered people (people who are hurt, fearful and defensive about everything), that child will become one of them. She will be hurt by rejection and selfishness. She may be abused in several ways and often neglected. Every incident of suffering is a loss to be mourned and comforted. To bring that child to health and keep her healthy, she must have enough of her painful memories comforted that she can learn the principles of mourning and comfort.
Every memory, every thought, every flashback, every physical limitation, every emotional or mental blockage, every limitation of any kind can be healed. As each one is brought to the surface the child (maybe an adult, but a child in these memories) learns to come alongside Jesus and rest in the strength of His presence. There the Holy Spirit brings the child back into the pain filled moment and establishes the truth of His presence and His answer for the pain. He heals the wound, bringing consolation and encouragement.
The pain is consoled, in that, the thought that has always made the memory painful is shown to be untrue. Seen as deception, the mind is able to discard it and receive the truth. The truth sets the child free to see that God was always there and has been waiting to embrace the child and comfort the heart.
In every dark moment where pain and fear rush in, God is there offering His presence and His answer to defeat the deceptions that would lead us to believe that pain and loss are so terrible they must be feared and resisted. Pain and loss are parts of life that are to be seen through God’s word of truth. Seen from God’s perspective, they will not produce fear, nor will the pain and loss remain. In God’s presence we mourn the loss, accept the loss, we are comforted in Christ and grow in faith.
No matter how painful or fearful a memory is; if I can go to the Lord, He will give me courage to face the event and be comforted in His answer to the pain. He always has an answer for every pain and every fear. All I need to do is go to Him, ask to be comforted and wait for His answer. His answer is always sufficient.
Often He takes me back into the pain so I can see clearly that when the answer comes it completely eliminates the pain, heals the wound and sets me free from the control the pain of fear exerted over me. I find out that I can trust God to heal me in my most painful and fearful moments. If I can see that He can and will do that for my past – I am ready to learn that He can and will do that for my present.
He is here, right now, ready to speak truth to every lie and prevent destruction from taking hold of my heart, and keep me from fear or pain setting up control centers in my soul (mind, emotions, will). Instead, His truth establishes the reality of His abiding presence and power to bless me in every situation.
“Every single time I’ve got something good to release.”
The Lord spoke these words to me. I had just awakened at 2am and opened my eyes. It seemed as if the Lord was standing by my bed stretching out His hand toward me, as if to give me something. I closed my eyes and opened them again. The second time it seemed the devil was standing there offering me something. I asked the Lord, “What’s going on?” It was then I heard the Lord say, “Every single time I’ve got something good to release.” The devil was offering destruction and God was offering something to strengthen me.
Life and death await us in every trying moment. To receive the gift of life from God requires us to consciously look to Him and ask, “What are You offering me, Lord?”
To take what the devil offers, we merely let the familiar pattern of our reaction that we are used to following play out. Merely react out of your hurts and wounds and you will receive destruction.
To receive the gift that God offers requires waiting on Him past the temptation to merely react. Do not react. Wait and look for God’s gift. His gift of life will add some special life-giving element into your life, into your relationship with God and into your relationship with your spouse and family.
10 When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take care of me. 11 Teach me Your way, O Lord, and lead me in a smooth path, because of my enemies. 12 Do not deliver me to the will of my adversaries; for false witnesses have risen against me, and such as breathe out violence. 13 I would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. 14 Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart; wait, I say, on the Lord! Psalm 27:10-14
Wait on the Lord! You will be strengthened by what you receive.
How do you recognize these moments of life and death choices?
Every single time things start to go downhill. Every single time things look bad. Every bad report. Every time you feel threatened. Every time anger rises within you. Every time some familiar pain is felt.
God declares into those moments, “Every single time I’ve got something good to release into your life.”
The thing that would prevent you from being able to hear from God is primarily fear. If anger is there, under the anger somewhere is fear. You are afraid of some bad thing happening to you. Your reaction is designed to protect you. What you do not see is how your reaction hurts others and how it actually digs you deeper into the rut of harmful reactions. In your fear of being hurt you are blind to the fact you are sacrificing others to protect yourself.
Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. Philippians 4:6
God is urging each of us, “Do not be afraid. Fear nothing! Trust Me! I am here to give you an answer to help everyone. You will not be harmed by trusting Me.”
To hear God we have to recognize our selfishness and the control that fear has over us. Fear is keeping us from doing God’s will. We must recognize this, ask God to forgive us for obeying fear instead of trusting Him and then renounce fear. Then we can look to God and wait to hear or see what gift He is offering us. That gift will restore peace to the heart and to all our relationships.
Mourning to be comforted is required when loss has occurred. The God Who comforts you, despite your loss, and returns joy to your heart is the same God Who will teach you to wait on Him in the midst of temptation to react out of fear. He will give the eternal rewards of waiting for His precious gifts, which He offers and freely gives every single time we are in need.
“Every single time I’ve got something good to release.”
For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Jeremiah 29:11