- Comfort
Psalm 71:21b
And comfort me on every side.
Connected to the greatness, God promises to comfort me on every side. Relative comfort is very close to a survival need just like food, clothing and shelter; in fact, humans spend much time and effort working on those three needs to make life more comfortable. Seeking creature comforts is an insatiable drive created in the heart of every natural man and woman. Greed wants more comfort. Humans also spend very much time and energy seeking emotional comfort in some kind of relationship. But, disappointingly, marriages, families, and friendships far too often produce more stress than comfort.
The quest for physical and emotional comfort is seldom fulfilling and never ending, which causes us to doubt that this promise could ever come true. Can I really be comforted on every side? Yes, when God comforts me. God provides for at least minimal comfort physically; God comforts emotionally in times of stress; God creates relational comfort through the love and forgiveness of one another; God promises financial comfort in times of poverty, debt and need; God comforts inwardly when outwardly we are sick and in pain.
Our God is “the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in our afflictions.” (I Corinthians 1:3-4). It is with the Gospel of Jesus Christ that the Holy Spirit, “The Comforter,” comforts our hearts and minds on every side. Whenever we need comfort we may turn to the Gospel: the same Gospel applies comfort whether we are suffering a loss, enduring pain and sickness, undergoing tribulations, frightened by death, anxious about tomorrow, worried about food and clothing and shelter, threatened by guilt and shame, or by persecution, or from whatever side the Enemy is attacking us. Whichever side the Enemy is coming from the Strength, Support, Hope, Promise and Comfort of God will be there to comfort and keep.