{"id":8466,"date":"2023-07-31T09:08:03","date_gmt":"2023-07-31T09:08:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sfdumitru.org\/?p=8466"},"modified":"2025-10-04T11:19:47","modified_gmt":"2025-10-04T11:19:47","slug":"the-god-of-patience-and-comfort","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfdumitru.org\/en\/2023\/07\/the-god-of-patience-and-comfort\/","title":{"rendered":"The God of Patience and Comfort"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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The Epistle reading on the 7th Sunday after Pentecost is an exhortation from Saint Paul to the Romans in the 15th chapter of his epistle, verses 1\u20137. It is an exhortation addressed to the strong, but it also applies to us. \u201cWe then who are strong ought to bear with the scruples of the weak, and not to please ourselves.\u201d This is the criterion of a Christian. Certainly, we are weak, especially in comparison to the saints. But we are strong compared to those who come after us, those younger\u2014just as, naturally, parents, even if weak, are strong in comparison to their children. It is a duty of Christians to bear the weaknesses of the helpless, and not seek our own pleasure. This is a basic rule, to not seek your own interest. \u201cLet each of us please his neighbor for his good, leading to edification. For even Christ did not please Himself; but as it is written: \u2018The reproaches of those who reproached You have fallen on Me.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

We are presented with an \u201cunpleasant\u201d portrait of the Christian: in the sense that personal pleasure is removed from that portrait. Personal satisfaction does not appear in the portrait of a Christian or in his or her conscious goals. But this does not mean joy disappears from the life of a Christian! In our faith, in Christianity, it is our part to go down, and God\u2019s part to lift us up. It is our part to humble ourselves, and God\u2019s part to honor us: just as He did with the saints. Abba Pambo prayed for many years that God would not honor him on earth. And yet God gave him such glory that his face shone like Moses\u2019 when he prayed. A Christian must not seek his own pleasure. The word comfort also appears, but it appears later, and we do not classify it in the sense of personal pleasure. Pleasure is one thing, and the comfort that comes from God is another. Therefore, we have a portrait that is not exactly pleasing. But this is the Christian, one who removes himself from the equation and puts the other and God in his place.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope.\u201d These two terms appear, \u201cpatience\u201d and \u201ccomfort,\u201d which Saint Paul says come from Scripture. In the following verse, he emphasizes this further: \u201cNow may the God of patience and comfort grant you to be like-minded toward one another, according to Jesus Christ.\u201d We see how he names God: \u201cthe God of patience and comfort.\u201d This shows how important these two are: patience and comfort! And he says this to balance what he said in the first part, where we are called to sacrifice ourselves for the good of our neighbor, following the model of Christ.<\/p>\n

The epistle concludes with this: \u201cTherefore receive one another, just as Christ also received us, to the glory of God.\u201d So, this mutual receiving of one another is to be done after the model of Christ. In order to receive us, Christ endures all our shortcomings, our weaknesses, our whims, our unpleasant odor, everything that is ours. And still, He receives us. That is why Saint Paul urges us to receive one another just as Christ received us. Christ does not say, \u201cSinner, what are you doing here?\u201d<\/p>\n

This is the Christian. That is why Saint Paul says, \u201cwe then who are strong.\u201d It is a call to maturity, to understanding that this is \u201csolid food\u201d (cf. 1 Corinthians 3:2; Hebrews 5:12). When we receive milk, abundant grace, and the embrace of a mother, it is a stage. But it is one that must be surpassed. And, to balance this \u201csolid food,\u201d the epistle speaks of the \u201cGod of patience and comfort.\u201d Saint Paul tells us that through patience we will encounter the comfort of God, which is better than anything.<\/p>\n

Therefore, by letting go of our own pleasure, we encounter the incorruptible comfort of God. God\u2019s comfort is not like these worldly, corruptible pleasures. He does His work (as the Comforter), but we must also do ours (not to seek our own pleasure).<\/p>\n

When Saint Paul called Him the \u201cGod of patience and comfort,\u201d he made a statement that we must continually put into practice. As Father Zacharias Zacharou used to say, \u201cour faith is an experimental one.\u201d That means we must carry out experiments in our lives and prove true the things the Lord said in the Gospel. So, when Saint Paul says \u201cthe God of patience and comfort,\u201d he is stating a law and we must see whether it applies in our lives. Do we feel God\u2019s comfort? Have we been strengthened by His patience? Have we \u201caccessed\u201d God in this way? This is what we must make tangible and visible in our lives: to taste the comfort of God and to be strengthened by the patience that comes from Him.<\/p>\n

If I don\u2019t believe that God is the God of comfort, I will be left wounded. Because then there will be no one to heal the wounds caused by the enemy, the devil, or by people, or the evil one working through people. If I don\u2019t believe that God is the \u201cGod of patience and comfort,\u201d it is a serious matter for my Christian identity. I will not be able to recover. If I don\u2019t believe that the Lord can raise me from any death, that He can heal any wound, I cannot move forward on the path of salvation. As the Fathers said: \u201cWhoever has learned to pray never rises from prayer without comfort.\u201d<\/p>\n

We must experience the God of comfort in our own lives. \u201cDo you believe that I am the God of comfort?\u201d \u201cAccording to your faith, let it be to you.\u201d Then we will see how we rise from prayer, or how we leave the Liturgy… But the level of faith asked of us is not trivial, just how the victories of God, the way He works, are not according to our expectations. He always surprises us\u2014therefore strong faith is needed. Having gained trust in His goodness at certain points in our lives, we will trust Him even in the less pleasant moments, when we are in distress. In a way, this is the test of faith. I prove my faith in unpleasant things, not in pleasant or easy ones. Everyone is faithful to God \u201cat the poolside,\u201d but here, \u201cin the trenches,\u201d with a pickaxe in hand and slaps across the face\u2014this is when we\u2019ll see whether I still believe that God is the God of comfort…<\/p>\n

Our God is the \u201cGod of patience and comfort,\u201d and He can bring us out of any death. We just need to believe. And He will show us who He really is.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Epistle reading on the 7th Sunday after Pentecost is an exhortation from Saint Paul to the Romans in the 15th chapter of his epistle, verses 1\u20137. It is an exhortation addressed to the strong, but it also applies to us. \u201cWe then who are strong ought to bear with the scruples of the weak, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[80],"tags":[81],"class_list":["post-8466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-icon-from-within-jul-aug-23","tag-epistle","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfdumitru.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfdumitru.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfdumitru.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfdumitru.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfdumitru.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8466"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sfdumitru.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8466\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8470,"href":"https:\/\/sfdumitru.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8466\/revisions\/8470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfdumitru.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfdumitru.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfdumitru.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}