Blessed be the God of All Comfort (2 Corinthians 1:3-4)

25 days ago this morning I heard the sad news of the death of our 3-month-old son, Mark Joseph Waleza Layton.  Days before I was going to see him and bring him home, God did. God did, to borrow words from the hymn by William Cowper, what was “unfathomable” to my “feeble sense…a mysterious way”? I couldn’t trace the foot-steps of God on the water or see His face behind the dark clouds of what Cowper called “frowning Providence.” In the initial moments there was disbelief, shock, confusion, stabbing heart pain, disbelief again … and waves of emotion that began to roll in, as another line of another hymn says “when sorrows like sea billows roll …”

That day, after praying and weeping with my family and friends, as the calls and visits settled a little, I picked up God's Word. But where would I turn? The Psalms? The place God led me, the book I didn’t leave or read from another book for a long time was 2 Corinthians. What Paul wrote to the Corinthians many years ago, I felt as if God had written those verses in this book directly for me on that day. I couldn’t leave this book. I lived this book, especially 2 Cor. 1:3-4

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 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.

I pray today this Scripture is fulfilled in our hearing, as it has been happening in my life, I pray it would happen in your life today, tomorrow, in the future, everyday, through Christ, for the sake of others who need the comfort of others, including you. God has been growing me, and I pray He is growing us in what this text is talking about, for the good and growth of us all.

That's how I began a message this morning from that passage of Scripture where I shared how God has ministered to me through His Word in the last 3 1/2 weeks, and I hope that message will minister to others beyond our church. In the message I also share some of what Didier and I shared with each other by email as we went through this together, and how God helped us, how the Lord gives and the Lord takes away ... and how sometimes the Lord gives again. Whether He gives or takes or gives again, we can bless His name.

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http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=9181119465510
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