At some point, everyone will need comfort.
I know a couple whose hearts ache because a sudden illness took their precious child. And what about the husband who lost his wife of sixty-plus years—a lifetime of becoming one flesh? Then there are the tragic deaths that shock us and take our breath away.
Where is comfort in times like those?
Relationships break, friends disappoint, health fails, jobs are eliminated, tragedies shake nations. How do you find comfort when life is falling apart?
You need something that can hold you together.
When our daughters were little, my wife taught them to bake. If you had sugar, brown sugar, flour, baking soda, salt and chocolate chips, you could make some delicious chocolate chip cookies. But you needed something else—something that would hold the dry ingredients together. With butter and eggs in the mix, a creamy and rich dough would form. Recipes need a binder—something that causes the ingredients stick together.

You need a binder when life causes your heart and soul to dry out and fall apart. You need something to hold you together. That’s comfort.
People try to add all kinds of ingredients. We seek refuge in delight, pleasure, purchases, and distraction. But those are dry ingredients that fade and spoil. We numb our sadness and anesthetize our losses with a few drinks or some pills or anything that will make us forget—at least for a little while. But that, too, is temporary. We become angry, bitter, careless, or despondent—lash out or withdraw. But that will dry us out and make us fall apart all the more.
What can hold you together? God’s Word reveals the mystery: “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation…He is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:15, 17, emphasis added).
Jesus is the binder. He is the one who gathers the brittle and dry shards of our hearts and souls to keep us from disintegrating in sadness and pain. “For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross” (Colossians 1:19-20). Putting us together, bringing peace. Jesus is our comfort.
The ingredients of grace are sticky—stronger than death itself: unconditional love, forgiveness, mercy and grace to help us in our time of need, a listener to our prayers, one who is with us always, the resurrection victory over death, and the blessing of eternal hope.
How are these binding ingredients added to our dry lives?
First, through people. The embrace of God’s restoring love is given through “the mutual conversation and consolation” of fellow followers of Christ (Smalcald Articles, III, IV). Hugs, care, listening, prayer, a helpful word, a well-timed visit—these are the blessings of people in whom the Holy Spirit, the Comforter (see John 14 and 16), dwells. The fruit of the Sprit overflow from people—from the community created by God called “the church”—to bind up the brokenhearted.
Second, through God’s healing and life-giving Word. What better news can be given than that of the Good Shepherd who is the resurrection and life and draws near to restore our souls (John 11:25-26, Psalm 23:3)?
Finally, through His gifts of Baptism and Holy Communion. When our hearts and souls are parched with pain, God adds the water of Baptism to hold us together as His beloved children. And when we feel emptied of life, Jesus puts Himself in the mix to carry us forward by faith.
The word “comfort” in the Bible means “to call alongside” (parakaleo). Jesus calls us alongside Himself by grace through His Spirit so that, in Him, we hold together. After all, God reveals Himself as “the Father of mercies and God of all comfort” (2 Corinthians 1:3).
That’s how you find comfort: Comfort finds you. It is miraculous. It is life-sustaining. It is good. And it becomes your greatest purpose on this earth. The Apostle Paul said that God comforts us, “so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God” (2 Corinthians 1:4). You do not exist to dry people out and make them fall apart. There’s plenty around that does that. No, you are here to share real and lasting comfort, to call people alongside the Savior who will hold them together, the binder who comforts each of our broken hearts.
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