6 If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer.
This is a strange formula, comfort producing patient endurance of suffering. Paul and the Corinthian believers were both undergoing suffering. Their lives were difficult because they were Jesus-followers. Prior to Paul’s conversion, he was on the fast-track to religious power and influence. But Jesus interrupted Paul’s plans on the road to Damascus. When Paul fell to the ground that day, his life reversed course. He began a life of suffering instead. He went from being a zealous hero willing to carry out murderous orders in order to keep the truth of the resurrection from spreading to the bottom of the heap. The religious leaders were in a bind. They had ordered the death of Jesus. But Jesus didn’t stay dead, and now they had a problem. I imagine they felt like I did at one of the first apartments we rented. They had small pets, very small pets, unwanted pets. No matter how many I squished with my many implements of cockroach death, there were always more. If I sprayed my apartment, they simply ran to the neighbors, which led to my neighbor spraying, and their return. You get the picture. The religious leaders were trying to do the impossible. They were trying to kill life. But did they stop trying to crush the spread of the life in Jesus? No! Thus the suffering. And thus the comfort. Paul experienced God’s comfort, often through the agency of other people. That comfort in turn helped him to endure, to not buckle under the pressure of the suffering. I think comfort often takes the form of a glimpse of the meaning, the reason for the suffering, or a glimpse of the eventual outcome of the suffering. Our response to comfort in the middle of suffering can be rebellion and bitterness, but that only breeds more rebellion and bitterness. But if we respond with patient endurance, we get more comfort, more patience and more endurance. When I am in the middle of suffering, these are the things I need. I don’t need the rescue, I need to know that Jesus is with me, that He has not abandoned me, that He will bring me through.
The Arnold Journey 