Post #88 - Receiving God's Comfort

I know you've been through a lot. We all have to endure some tough times. But God wants us to know that He is there - ready to love and comfort us. 

But God doesn't do all the comforting alone. He uses us for that. 

2 Corinthians 1:3-4 says that "God is our merciful Father and the source of all comfort. He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us."

So, when you need to be comforted, go to God and allow Him to comfort you. He will not only give you what you need to be healed and strengthened, but He will give you what is needed to help others be healed and strengthened as well. 

God will give you a testimony to share: words of wisdom to enlighten, words of affirmation to encourage, and words of love to heal the heart and bring peace and understanding. 

When we go through our hard times, we have to remember that they are not only for us. They are also for the people we are connected to and come into contact with. Our experiences can help someone safely out of theirs. Our mistakes can help someone else to avoid them.

I know it's hard to go through and endure the tests and trials we face. But there is no testimony without the test. And there is no growth, healing, revelation, or breakthrough without the testimony. 

And when we are healed, when we are comforted, we can give the gift of healing and comfort to someone else. 

Post #87 - Gaining Understanding

I came to a realization today... about understanding. 

The bible says to lean not on our own understanding, but to seek God and His understanding and He will direct us (Proverbs 3:6). 

As I was reading today, a very complex scholarly novel about literature, I began to get a little worked up over my lack of understanding of the topic. Scholarly and literary works tend to use big, intellectual words that only the people who have extensively studied the topic can understand. 

I found myself getting frustrated as a new doctoral student, over the fact that I am expected, at this stage, to critically examine and write about information that I know nothing about!

Then God reminded me of Proverbs 3:6. It is not my own understanding that I should depend on. I had a hard time understanding it because I didn't pray and give the assignment and my understanding of it to God before I began.

Some might say that I'm going too far, that it doesn't take all that...

But putting God first in everything means to put Him first.... in EVERYTHING. Even something as trivial as a doctoral assignment. 

I realized that I was depending on my own ability to understand the information I was reading. I, with my limited mind, was trying to understand a topic, or language, that I had never heard before. How can I expect myself to understand something I don't know? 

But God is all-knowing. 

And when we ask God for understanding, no matter the topic or situation, He will give it to us. He will give us the direction we need to gain the understanding we need. 

So, I stopped reading, I "woo-saa'd", and I went to God in prayer. I asked Him for understanding of the information and the ability to retain it. To gain knowledge of something I did not know before. And I asked for the ability to critically analyze the information and present it to my professor with the intellect that I know I possess. 

I just have to trust God for understanding, believe in myself, and tap into my God-given genius.

This is true for all of us. We must all do this. 

We all have the capacity to do beyond what we think we can do. To understand beyond what we think we can understand. 

We just have to depend on God's understanding and not our own.