I Long to Be Comforted, But Where Will I Find Comfort?
Life has a way of making us feel uncomfortable. I once attended a summer wedding in a farm meadow. It was oppressively hot and humid that day. It wasn’t the best day to wear a black suit. I chose poorly. I was uncomfortable. I’ve had pneumonia twice. Take it from me, pneumonia is uncomfortable. I’ve had an MRI on my head and chose the wrong music station. Lying still in a loud claustrophobic’s nightmare while your brain is being scanned and regrettable music is playing is uncomfortable. God was gracious. No tumor. That was comforting. When a tractor-trailer crashed into our backyard fence where my sons sometimes play, I thought for a moment my sons might have been killed. That was very uncomfortable. I’ve battled besetting sins and lost. Succumbing to temptation is uncomfortable.
You’ve felt uncomfortable too. Sometimes your discomfort was physical. Other times, it was spiritual. And during those times, you felt a strong desire to be comfortable. What did you crave? What did you turn to for comfort?
Think about it. What gives you comfort? What do you expect to soothe you? Your hands enfolding a cup of coffee? Savoring a piece of chocolate cake or two? Falling into the loving embrace of your spouse? Sitting beside a crackling fire in your favorite sweater with a good book in hand? There are many pleasures in this life that do give wonderful comfort, and we ought to enjoy them, but are they sufficient comforts for life’s challenges, struggles, and pain?
Search the world over, and you’ll find few statements more true and profound than Heidelberg Catechism one. It’s like a warm blanket of gospel truth for a chilled soul. The Heidelberg Catechism begins by asking a great question about comfort, which everyone desires. It asks, “What is your only comfort in life and death?” I don’t think this question ignores the reality of earthly comforts properly enjoyed, but I do think it searches for the exclusive comfort that truly and wholly comforts the soul, a comfort that transcends competing comforts. Let’s face it, when we are living with chronic pain or breathing our last breaths, chocolate cake can’t even begin to calm our fear and anxiety or infuse our soul with true peace!
Heidelberg Catechism one addresses the question of comfort like this: “That I am not my own, but belong with body and soul, both in life and in death, to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ.” True comfort for the soul comes in knowing and believing that you belong, not to yourself, but to Jesus.
In his well-known poem titled “Invictus,” the late avowed atheist William Ernest Henley concluded, “I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.” In addition to being a thoroughly egocentric conclusion, Henley’s conclusion is a lonely and restless one. Staunch individualism and self-determination are hopeless when we face insurmountable problems and the certainty of meeting God face-to-face after dying. True comfort is enjoyed in life and death only when your soul is assured that Jesus Christ has taken you for himself, to love you, care for you, and defend you before the righteous throne of God. That kind of comfort makes eating chocolate cake all the more enjoyable and pneumonia all the more hopeful.
In 1 Corinthians 6:19–20, the Apostle Paul gave the Corinthian church deep comfort in saying, “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.” Our only comfort in life and death is the assurance that in love, Jesus shed his blood on the cross to purchase us for himself. We do not belong to ourselves, and this is our greatest good, for in belonging to Christ, Christ cares for us in ways that we cannot care for ourselves.
As masters of our fate and captains of our souls, we cannot satisfy the demands of God’s holy law, cannot please God, cannot escape God’s justice, and this life with its countless sorrows will truly be our best life. But the Apostle Paul said in Titus 2:14 that Jesus Christ “gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.”
The greatest comfort for the human soul, in fact, the only true and sustained comfort, is to know, “I am not my own.” It is to know that Jesus Christ gave his life to possess our life. Comfort comes in trusting that Jesus has redeemed us from all lawlessness, purified us, reconciled us to God, and ever lives to make intercession for us. Comfort is knowing that because of Christ alone and the gift of his righteousness and because of solidarity with him, we are accepted and loved by God. To belong to Christ Jesus is to be loved by God because all who are united to the Son are forever loved by the Father.
Your soul will find comfort, even in discomfort and pain, when you lay down the burden of being the master of your own fate and captain of your own soul and rest in belonging to Christ. Your soul will rest comfortably when Christ is your only comfort, hope, and joy in life and death.
Quotes from the Heidelberg Catechism are taken from Zacharias Ursinus & Jonathan Shirk, The Heidelberg Catechism (Manheim: Small Town Theologian, 2021).
Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. May not copy or download more than 500 consecutive verses of the ESV Bible or more than one-half of any book of the ESV Bible.
