Our Comforter

The past week I’ve been contemplating comfort. I love my creature comforts. They are things that make life easier or more pleasant; they bring us an ease of mind. I have a lot of creature comforts, I’ve recently discovered, could probably fill the page with them. There are fuzzy slippers, a comfy bed filled with many pillows, long hot showers, hot tea in the afternoon, preferable Earl Grey Lavender, warm fleeces, heated car seats, chocolate chip cookies right out of the oven with a glass of cold milk, etc. Truthfully, there are too many to count, but all these things give me a sense of comfort.

Comfort seems to be foundational to our being. We seem to have been made with a desire to be comforted. I’m sure there are some technical psychological explanations for it. All I know, is that we seem to need it, and we’ve needed it from the time we were born. We seek comfort because it brings contentment, relaxation, relief, and satisfaction. It also soothes, reassures, and brings us solace. Our seeking comfort counters pain, hurt, disappointments, longings and desires. Comfort also helps us get through and alleviate daily stresses and anxieties, fatigue, relationship challenges, pressures and deadlines, etc. Our need for comfort can vary depending on our situation and our circumstance. But it is something we all crave, for some reason which I don’t fully understand. I lean towards, “that’s how God made us.”

We not only need comfort, we are prompted to give comfort when we see someone hurting, either through sharing words or actions. Comforting others is a beautiful display of giving love as well as a show of humility when we open ourselves to receive comfort from others. There is no denying our need for receiving and giving comfort. It’s a beautiful exchange of love between people.

It is usually easy to identify when we are in need of comfort, especially when our pains and struggles are great. But what about our need for smaller, less obvious comforts. I’ve recently identified the ways in which I need little comforts throughout the day and what I look to to satisfy those needs.

I reach for a lot of my creature comforts. It’s a quick fix for satisfying a need. But what is at the root of my need for comfort? Doesn’t it go deeper than just a desire for a chocolate chip cookie or an evening beverage? Doesn’t the need for comfort go deeper than just a desire of the flesh? Is the desire of my flesh just masking a deeper desire for comfort, something deep inside my soul? What is my soul longing for, I ask myself? To be loved, to be seen, to be heard, to be known, to be accepted. Is there loneliness, sadness, disappointment in my soul that needs comforting? I can reach for my creature comforts all day long, but they will not soothe my soul one bit, for tomorrow I will awake to the same need to be soothed, yet again.

So why do I reach for my creature comforts instead of reaching for God? Why do I do that? A couple of years ago, I distinctly remember wanting to escape the stresses of my day and feeling a need for some comfort. I can’t really remember what the stresses were, but I do remember I was looking for relaxation and escape. A nice hot shower should do the trick, I thought. As I was in the shower, I remember thinking, I could stay in here forever. It’s so soothing and it’s taking away all the stresses that have piled on during the day. Oh, how the Lord convicted me that evening. He plainly said to me, “why do you seek comfort from the world and not from Me?” Ugh… I sheepishly replied, “cause it’s seems easier” To which the Lord replied, “I am here to comfort you in all your moments. You only need to come to me.” I don’t want to pick “easier” if it’s prevents me from receiving the Lord’s comfort.

Why do we look for earthly comforts, when God is offering us something more; something that goes beyond the temporal, our flesh, and reaches the eternal, our soul. In this Lenten season, as the Lord asks me to reevaluate my creature comforts, I pray that we allow Him to show us where our soul needs comfort and to not to be sidetracked by fleshly comforts. Our gentle and loving God wants to be our sole comforter, so He can be our soul Comforter.

Isaiah 66:13 “As a mother comforts a child, so I will comfort you.”