The command rings out from God to store up comfort: Isaiah 40:1 (ESV) Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.

God was about to restore His people. So, Isaiah was to speak tenderly to Jerusalem. Her warfare was ended, and her sins were pardoned.

But then the prophet continues to give a message that would develop a people prepared to comfort an entire world: Isaiah 40:3–5 (ESV) A voice cries: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”

You see, friend, the way God’s message goes out is through His Church offering comforting counsel to a world that is not well. Now that “the Lord has spoken” I have two questions to spur us to action: First, are you part of the helpers who bring comfort and peace or the torturers who erect confusing stumbling blocks?

And, secondly, don’t you also find it paradoxical that comfort is best felt in a broken heart? Is it not a paradox that the fragrance of a rose is only fully released when crushed?

Paul clears up these paradoxes in 2 Corinthians 1:3–7 (ESV). Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, 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.

For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort.

Here is Paul’s paradox made even more clear: the crushing of my heart allows me to comfort others with the comfort I have received. But I must never forget that the comfort I use is from God. That means, I am merely to be a conduit through which God’s comfort can easily flow.

So, here is the answer to “why must I suffer so” – it is so that I can comfort others. But, with the real goal of God’s glory being revealed when the world looks at the soul that should be crushed, but now is overflowing with peace and joy instead.

Has your heart been crushed? Then stop asking why and start living the answer so God’s glory may be revealed.