I felt comfort was the topic to focus on today. Obviously, that means we are going to 2 Corinthians 1:3-4, which says:
“Praise be to the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God”
The idea of comfort is not foreign to us in our culture. We are swimming in any kind of comfort we could want. The experience of comfort in our culture however, tends to be different than Paul’s experience of comfort from God in this passage. The comfort in our modern culture tends to be more like distraction or numbing while the experience Paul is unpacking here is one of a robust sense of well-being. The words “all comfort” come from the ancient Greek Word “Paraklesis.” Now I am no Greek scholar so I hope I’m pronouncing that work correctly (Probably not) but the pronunciation is not what’s ultimately important here. What’s important is the idea behind the word and, the idea behind Paraklesis throughout the NT is always more than just a soothing sympathy. It has the idea of strengthening, of helping, or of making one stronger.
So, as we’ve been serving these families this weekend–pushing the wheelchair, carrying backpacks, listening to stories and offering our attention–we’re bringing these families comfort. And not just a fleeting worldly comfort but a comfort that is coming from God through us. This is God’s kingdom at work. I love what David says of God in Psalm 68:5-6, “A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows is God in his holy dwelling. God sets the lonely in families. He leads out the prisoners with singing.” That is who God is and what happens in his kingdom. That’s what’s happening here at these retreats, we are moving his kingdom forward.
But, ultimately these families are going to leave and return to their complex life as a diagnosed parent or caregiver or child. We won’t be there 24/7 to drive them to their appointment or make dinner or help with the laundry. We can and have served them as best we can this weekend but the best thing we can give them as we send them off today is knowledge of this “God of all Comfort” that you and I get to know intimately. We know God and we get to experience him in the same way Paul did because of what Jesus did for us. Now we get to turn around and offer these families a supernatural comfort that WILL be there during the appointment or dinner prep or laundry or anything else that eventually comes their way.
C.S. Lewis says, “God made us: invented us as a man invents an engine. A car is made to run on petrol, and it would not run properly on anything else. Now God designed the human machine to run on Himself. He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other.”
See, comfort is not a bad thing, in fact it’s something we were meant to receive from God. Look at Paul, the author of almost half of the books in the New Testament–here he is starting a letter by telling his friends about the comfort he receives from God while he performs his ministry. So, as we send these families off today, let’s be people marked by the comfort we receive from God.
Grant Ledin is an Inheritance of Hope volunteer. He shared this devotional with the Fort Worth Legacy Retreat® team in April, 2026.