O Tidings of Comfort & Joy

Comfort, give comfort to My people, says your God (Is. 40:1)

Thus begins the section of Isaiah known as “The Book of Consolation.” I can remember sitting in the gas station lines back in the 70s when gas was being rationed. (Remember those even and odd days?). I remember a 13-month period toward the end of my high school years when my dad was unemployed and money was tight. My mom was able to make a dollar stretch to proportions seemingly outdone only by the miracle of the loaves and fishes, and as far as the three of us kids were concerned, everything was normal. We never felt deprived of anything.

Those burdens can turn into blessings, though. My dad’s unemployment situation translated into a full scholarship when I went off to a private university, something there is no way we could have afforded on our own, even if Dad had not been out of work.

When the Lord says, “Give comfort to My people,” He doesn’t expect us to solve the economic crisis or rescue someone’s mortgage, although I did read a story recently of a person buying a house at an auction and then turning around and giving it to the original owner who’d suffered the foreclosure. One of the recent issues of Reader’s Digest carried a story about someone who did an experiment and determined to wave and/or smile at a number of people each day. The author indicated that you could see people’s stress levels go down in their body language, faces would brighten, and both parties felt better as a result. All this from such a small gesture.

Jesus promised that we would do His work and even greater ones than these (Jn. 14:12), if only we believe in Him and in the power we have through His Holy Spirit living in us. Most of you know that I am a huge fan of Mother Teresa of Calcutta. One of her best loved sayings is that God doesn’t expect us to do great things, only small things with great love. Neither does He ask for success, but rather for our fidelity. Sometimes it takes an enormous act of faith to believe that a seemingly small thing can have a huge impact on another person. But as the angel Gabriel said to Mary, nothing is impossible with God (Lk. 1:37).

Small kindnesses done to others have a way of spreading like wild fire. The Lord ardently desires that we spread this fire in our time. I have come to set the world on fire, and how I wish it were already ablaze (Lk 12:49). As we approach the glory of Christmas, let us each in our own small ways help to keep that fire burning to welcome the Light of the World who is our King and Prince of Peace.

Prayer Request: That we would all find small ways to bring comfort to God's people during these stressful times.

Prayer: O Lord, our God, what a wondrous work You did in sending Your only Son to redeem our fallen world and to bring us the comfort of salvation. In this time when so many are hurting - financially, emotionally and especially spiritually, help us to be attentive to their needs and to offer what comfort we can, in ways both great and small as Your Spirit leads us. We make this prayer through Him who is our Comfort and our Joy, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.