As you may have realized by now, I'm re-reading one of my all time favorite books: The God of All Comfort. Tonight's entry is right from a chapter that has helped me time and time again, both in recovery and in my overall life. I sincerely hope you find this available "Comfort" mentioned here. Most of what is below, is taken directly from the book.

2 Corinthians 1:3-6

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. 5 For just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ.

I'm not sure where any of you are right now, yet I know quite clearly where I am. I know not all of you who read these pieces are dealing with current or even past, infidelity. But as you and I continue to gaze upon life, I don't see many places of true comfort, solace, and peace. In fact, if there is anything God has been doing these past few years, it's uprooting old belief systems of painful discomfort. I have learned so much about dysfunction and misery, masquerading itself as Christianity. Not all, but some of my old belief systems have been crucified, due to my fall. My journey into recovery has brought to light so much dysfunction and deception. I blame no one. If anyone is to blame, it is purely myself.

Yet, regardless of how these destructive beliefs got there, the truth of the matter is, instead of making us genuinely comfortable, religion has made us thoroughly and painfully uncomfortable. Who could help being so uncomfortable in the presence of such a cold, hard, controlling, and ever measuring Judge, called Christ?

Over and over again Christ (not religion) declares "I, even I, am He that comforteth you."

Get this, despite what many of us have grown up thinking (that God is ultimately mad at us and keeping record of just how badly and perpetually we screw things up) is actually the God who in fact, so loved the world, He sent His only Son, not to judge the world, but to save it!! He is also the God who "anointed" the Lord Jesus Christ to bind up the brokenhearted, and to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison gates to them that are bound, and to comfort ALL that mourn.

Did you catch the "ALL" mentioned there? Thank God for the audacity of God, to include that 'all.' Not the perfect ones. Not the one's who never sin. Every captive of sin, every addict, every adulterer, every betrayed and hurt spouse, every hopeless and discouraged child of God.

Yes, even adulterers and addicts must fit into such an 'all.'

Even when His disciples asked Him to call down fire from heaven to consume some people who refused to receive him, He turned and rebuked them and said "Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. The Son of Man has not come to destroy men's lives but to SAVE them."

Don't for a moment suspect God to be some senile old grandfather figure who fails to live in reality and marginalizes all of our sins, overlooking them, laughing at them, and excusing them as mere "errors in judgment." My life, and quite possibly some of yours, is the antithesis of such theology. One may ask whether this "Comforter" does not sometimes reprove us for our sin, and whether we can get any comfort out of this? But this is exactly one of the places where such comfort takes flight and flourishes, while religion throws its hands up and has no real answer of divine substance. What sort of children should we be if we had no divine teacher always at hand to show us our faults and awaken in us a desire to get rid of them, shake them, hate them, and flee from them? What loving and comforting God, would fail to reveal to us that which is ultimately aimed at destroying our lives? What true Father, Heavenly to boot, would forsake their child in their greatest hour of need and pain?

WHAT IS GOD SAYING TO YOU TODAY? if we want to be comforted, we must make up our minds to believe every single word of such comfort God has ever spoken; and we must indignantly refuse to listen to any words of discomfort spoken by our own hearts, souls, so called friends or circumstances. We must set our faces like flint to believe, under each and every sorrow and trial, in the Divine Comforter, and to accept and rejoice in His all embracing comfort. We must go as far as to say 'set our faces like flint' because, when everything around us seems antagonistic of this loving and forgiving God, it is not always easy to believe God's words, or nature of comfort. We must put our wills into this matter of being comforted, just as we have to put our wills into all other matters in our spiritual life. Oddly enough, we must choose to be comforted. We must choose to allow this Great Comforter to reach down into our life, possibly through the hand of painful and traumatic consequences, and allow Him to do His finest work: which is saving and redeeming messes like me, and maybe even you. I haven't quite figured it out, but I do know that I have learned so much about running TO God, instead of running FROM God. I pray you run To Him today! I pray you choose to be comforted, and welcome Him into your life to rule and reign as He sees fit.