“If you are not suffering now, you will someday. Somehow, someway suffering enters everyone’s door. Sometimes you see it coming and other times it blindsides you, but it will come because we are imperfect people who inflict suffering on one another and we all are unable to completely escape the brokenness of the world that is our present address. [But] because of the glory of God’s presence and power and the reality of mercies that are new every morning, we do not have to run from this topic. We can stare it in the face with open and expectant hearts. Remember, the hope of redemption is not just reserved for eternity but is a real, living, present hope.” (Paul Tripp, Suffering)

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction…” (The Apostle Paul, 2 Corinthians 1:3-4)

When a man with a resumé of afflictions as long as the apostle Paul bursts out with praise and a promise like this, we would be wise to listen to what he has to say. If you were dying of thirst in a desert and a man approached telling you where he had found fresh water, you would follow him. Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians begins with the seemingly paradoxical good news that there is comfort to be found for the believer in affliction, and not just in it but through it.

This Sunday Kenny Clark will be preaching 2 Corinthians 1:1-11 and Caleb Bilti will be leading us in sung worship. We would each welcome your prayer as we prepare. And we can pray for one another that through Christ we too, like Paul, would know what it feels like to be “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing” (2 Corinthians 6:10).

See you Sunday, Grace. Come hungry.

 

Song Link of the Week

Christ, the Sure and Steady Anchor by Matt Boswell and Matt Papa

In the suffering in the sorrow
When my sinking hopes are few
I will hold fast to the anchor
It shall never be removed