There are two words that can help us through every kind of trouble. They are found in the middle of 2 Corinthians 7:5-6.
“We were afflicted on every side: conflicts without, fears within. But God, who comforts the depressed, comforted us.”
Our modern world can make us all understand Paul’s cry that he was “afflicted on every side.” We can have overdue mortgage payments, job insecurities, friends that will not speak to us, and that person at work who seems bent on making our life miserable. Those are the things we might face. Sometimes life seems hard. Yes, we have “conflicts without” and “fears within.”
Paul was no stranger to trouble. Next tie you think you have hard days, read Paul’s list:
“In…imprisonments, beaten times without number, often in danger of death. Five times I received from the Jews thirty-nine lashes. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, a night and a day I have spent in the deep…….in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers on the sea, dangers among false brethren; I have been in labor and hardship, through many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure.” (II Corinthians 11:23-27)
How does one live through being “beaten times without number, often in danger of death and sleepless nights, hunger and thirst?” It makes our little list sound rather simple.
Well, our list is not simple. It is not easy. But the secret to dealing with our hard places is the same secret that Paul used. It is found in verse six of our text. After Paul says he had all these fears and conflicts, he then says, “But God.”
Two words! Two words that can turn everything around. Two words that make all the difference in the world. Two words, that are available to us at any time. “But God!”
“But God who comforts the depressed, comforted us.”
~Lonnie Davis