We will probably not wrestle God in flesh (like Israel did in Genesis 32). We will, all of us, be touched by God in a way that changes how we walk, that stops us from relying on ourselves. We will prevail only by struggling on the mat of suffering that compels us to be comforted by God.

Paul blessed “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort” as he penned what we know as his second letter to the Corinthians. He blessed God “who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction.” He reasoned: “For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.” This is not the removal of pain, it is comfort for patient endurance.

Do we want to be comforted or comfortable? Being comfortable doesn’t require anything special or supernatural. God will wrestle us, make us limp in various ways, until we, like Paul, are “so utterly burdened beyond our strength what we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death.” How could it get worse? What else could be added? “But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead” (2 Corinthians 1:3-5, 8-9).

The Lord’s Table reminds us of His death, but we also rejoice that He is risen as He said. God—the merciful, comforting God—is sovereign and powerful over life and death. He would have us rely on Him. He has no needs. We eat and drink in total dependence on Him, the only God who raises the dead.

Be comforted, Christian, that He heals the broken. He puts to flight death’s dark shadows. He bids envy, strive, and quarrels cease. You are beyond your capacity, not beyond His.