Finding Comfort Намуна

God’s Tender Heart 

Isaiah 40:1-5

"Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for, that she has received from the LORD’s hand double for all her sins.

A voice of one calling: “In the wilderness prepare the way for the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain. And the glory of the LORD will be revealed, and all people will see it together. For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”

I love this expression of God’s tender heart in the midst of suffering. It’s no accident that as God speaks comfort – “tenderly” – to His people, it’s contrasted with the cry to “prepare the way for the Lord” in the wilderness and to “make straight in the desert a highway for our God.”

God is declaring that in the midst of the suffering of His people, He is going to show up. He hasn’t abandoned or forgotten them. And while this passage is prophetic and looking to the future, I believe it reveals something rich about God’s heart.

First, God is intensely aware of the suffering of His people. He isn’t distant or somehow unaware. Second, God knows that when we are in that place it feels like a wilderness. A place full of difficult mountains and deep valleys.  

Right now, you might feel like you are in a wilderness… a desert… the dry, parched land of suffering. It’s in the midst of that desert place that you can expect God to show up. No matter how isolated you might feel, or deserted, or the intensity of deep personal suffering, God cares deeply and has a way of showing up in the midst of that suffering.

Most importantly, God wants you to know He is a God of comfort.  And He is there for you in the midst of your suffering.

Over the next few days you will learn why you can trust in God and why He can’t be thwarted in bringing you the comfort you so desperately need in this moment. 

In the meantime, take a moment today to find a quiet place and let God know what you are feeling and experiencing. Allow Him then to show up and give you the comfort you so desperately need.