Comfort Is Contagious

Date: Sunday, October 11, 2026

Click here for the backstory on Paul's second letter to the Corinthians from the Bible Project.

Readings: 2 Corinthians 1 | Psalm 86

Paul’s second letter to Corinth opens with praise, not polish: “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort” (2 Corinthians 1:3). He then admits that he and his companions were “under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure” in Asia (1:8). Paul’s relationship with the Corinthians was strained (probably because of the truth he spoke in his last letter), and he writes as a wounded pastor to a broken church. Yet he insists that suffering is never wasted: the comfort we receive from God overflows to others, because Christ’s sufferings overflow into our lives and so does His comfort (1:5).

In 1873, Horatio Spafford, a Chicago lawyer and devout Presbyterian layman, sent his wife and four daughters ahead to Europe. Their ship, the Ville du Havre, collided with another vessel and sank; all four girls were lost. Anna, his wife, telegraphed him two words: “Saved alone.” Tradition holds that, sailing to join her, Spafford penned the lines of the hymn “It Is Well with My Soul” as his ship crossed the waters where his daughters died. Whatever the details, the hymn has comforted millions of strangers. His grief didn’t vanish; it became a conduit to God’s comfort.

That’s the economy of God in action. It’s a river that flows through the broken. You don’t need to have processed your pain perfectly to offer another person a hand. In fact, your experience with similar pain might be the conduit of God’s comfort to them. So remember, the God who “raises the dead” (1:9) is the same one who sits with you now.

Devotional Prompts:

• Who comforted you during a hard season, and whom might God be inviting you to comfort in return?
• How do you feel about Paul’s honesty regarding despair, and what does it permit you to admit to God?

Prayer: God of all comfort, You meet us in the places we would rather hide. Hold us when we are crushed, and then make us gentle carriers of the same mercy to others. We trust You with what we cannot fix. Amen.