“Comforted To Comfort Others!”

“Comforted To Comfort Others!”(II Cor.1:3-7).
If there is a creature around us that deserves comfort, it is the hen.
Domestic animals like cats and dogs are not reared for consumption. All the same, there are exceptions to any rule.
The hen has a different story to tell. After laying eggs for days, comes the incubation period of twenty-one days. In each of these days, the hen leaves the eggs for just a few minutes to poo and search for food. A few days before the chickens hatch, the hen virtually starves as it remains on top of the eggs till they hatch.
When the chickens are hatched, the hen risks its life to protect the chickens from birds of prey. In cold weather, it covers the chicks under its wings.
Despite all its labour and strain, the hen does not enjoy any fruit of its labour; and it neither complains nor regrets as it soon starts to lay eggs again. The hen’s labour is the food of humans! What a life!
When at any point in time you think that you have laboured in vain, go and receive lessons of resilience from the hen.
Unlike the hen, we are created in God’s image with anthropocentric advantages. While it is all of creation that is groaning, we are the chosen who will have an afterlife of resurrection.
The incarnation was, for the sake of us humans. Though the incarnation is a demonstration of God’s love for all humanity, his comfort comes only to those who, through their belief in Christ, “share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ.”
The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort. Christ came into the world to share our humanity since it takes one who has been there to know how it feels like with those who are there or have passed there.
Therefore, through Christ’s experience, “the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort…comforts us in all our troubles.”
It doesn’t end there. What we receive from God is not ours to keep! The measure we receive is the measure we ought to give out. God comforts us “so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.”
We are not like the hen whose labour is in vain. “Just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ.”
Discipleship, as sharing in the sufferings of Christ, is intended to strengthen those we disciple so that they should be ready to face the reality of following Christ. Discipleship is not the promise of a land overflowing with milk and honey! Discipleship is accepting the risk of saying and doing what Christ initiated and asked us to execute.
We have this confidence: The LORD is always there with us to console and encourage us when we feel like giving up. Praise be him!
Prayer: Praise be to you O God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and God of all comfort. Amen!
Have a blessed day! Peace be with you!
Rev Babila Fochang.
19/03/2026.