Storms of Life

  Storms cause problems in our lives.  I recall one time that my Father had taken me along with him to pay a bill at Sears and Roebuck in La Porte, Indiana.  While he was in the store, a storm came up with a lot of thunder and lightning.  It scared the daylights out of me and I begin to cry loudly with each clap of thunder.  At one of my loudest outburst, a lady happened to be walking by and noticed I was upset in the car.  She immediately went into the store and found my Dad and gave him a tongue lashing for leaving me in the car.  He came out and told me about it and wasn't too upset with me.  Storms whether physical or spiritual cause us, or can cause us to become upset with things around us.  When my "Father" was in the car, I wasn't bothered with the thunder or the lightning but if I was alone, I was terrified.  Our spiritual lives are very similar.   Second Corinthians 1:3-5 says, "Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.  For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ."  
     Comforting others should be a part of our daily ministry to others.  As God has comforted us, so we can be a comfort to those around us.   I would imagine that there were many little children that were afraid of the storm on that hot Saturday afternoon but the only one that concerned me was my Father who was in the store during the storm.  In our lives today, we find that we are under the pressures of life and while we may think that our problems are unique and that we might be alone, there are others going through the same thing.  The instruction in the above passage reminds us that we can comfort those around us that are also going through the same tribulation that we have experienced.  This is why it is so important for believers to seek to be together in services at our own church even when we feel like staying at home.  Satan would live to have all believers to stay at home and to wallow in their tribulation and thereby not be any comfort to each other.  Well, we can praise God for the fact that He  comforts us in our tribulation in order that we might comfort others.