Finding True Comfort in God's Purposeful Pain

1) "What I'm trying to say is that every benefit will experience an attack. The benefit of wisdom is attacked by self-pride. The benefit of provision is attacked by self-pride. The benefit of provision is attacked by this, I'm going to provide for myself. You're working in your own strength. Every benefit, the benefit of peace is attacked by worry. This benefit of comfort is attack, and I'll tell you how it's attacked. It's attack, the way the enemy attacks us is by creating counterfeit comfort and unhealthy ways of being comforted when we're in pain." [07:19] (29 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


2) "When you experience pain, what we're going to learn in this passage, when you experience pain in your life, it's not punishment, it is purposeful. That God is going to use that pain for his purpose and his plan in your life. It's not for punishment. So he is the God who is, first of all, full of mercy, and he is the God of all. Comfort. That means God will never run out of comfort. That every, there's not, there's no trouble you can have in your life that God doesn't have comfort for." [09:19] (29 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


3) "When you suffer pain and difficulty and trouble in your life, the comfort that God brings you, sometimes that comfort comes through wisdom, it may come through perspective, it may come through healing, it may come through provision, it may come through counseling, it may come out of his word, it may come just into your spirit. That comfort that you get, that comfort that you get, from God, through your trouble, is now equips you to share the same comfort with somebody else who's going to go through the same thing you did. That's purposeful." [10:32] (31 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


4) "Sometimes you got to wait on comfort. Sometimes you got to hurt a long time, but you got to let God comfort you his way. And there's a difference between faith and fantasy. And it's a little tricky because if you're like me, I... grew up let me okay i'm gonna say it like this i'm a little hesitant to say this because it's personal to me can y 'all keep a secret about me you shaking here you're gonna tell this soon the service over i ain't even when i was when i was younger when i was in elementary or junior high school in particular i used to get in trouble a lot it wasn't criminal i was just rambunctious disobedient belligerent and obnoxious how about all them that would be on my report card obnoxious belligerent insubordinate i was really a class clown but the teachers didn't think the jokes were funny because i make fun of the teachers and everything just i had the spirit i had the gift of jonah you don't don't don't don't mess with me i got i'm gifted in that area so because i was getting in trouble so much my mom the way she would handle it she would just punish me she made me stay in my room so i spent a lot of time in my room as a kid and my mother wouldn't even give me a time frame like if you're doing time you can handle it better if you know how much time you're going to be doing but she just said go in your room it'll be no like time frame like go in your room like so what i did was in my room i created an imaginary world i did that when i was a child that's how i managed my pain through my imagination so i created a world that i could survive in because the real world hurt too bad i'm trying not to go too deep i might share too much stuff but but one of the things i would do i didn't just have toys to play with and action figure toys i would i it got so deep with me i i may believe that pencils and pens were real people and people didn't know me know that about me like that's how deep my fantasy world was but that's how i create that's how i manage my pain now that imagination serves me well because it helps me to be creative but what you have to be careful about is what you develop in childhood you master in adulthood so because i am deeply imaginative when god says cast down imaginations that's hard for me because that's been my go -to move when i'm hurting because i didn't just use it when i was a child when i got old If I ever got in pain, you couldn't keep me there. I would just imagine I was somewhere else. Who understands what I'm talking about? Okay, let me do it like this. Anybody that imagines with me, we don't smoke weed. We smoke dreams. We don't drink alcohol. We drink wishes." [15:47] (169 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


5) "Your pain is not punishment it is preparation for your assignment you never picked it you wouldn't assign up for it, but you are now qualified to help. And it would be a greater tragedy for you to keep what you learned to yourself when other people are going through the same thing you went through. Don't you shut your mouth. You done bled too much and cried too much and hurt too much and learned too much and got through too much to not help somebody else walk across the same bridge you had to get across." [23:37] (28 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


6) "The power of an olive is not in its constitution. The power of an olive is what's in the olive. It is the oil. Somebody say oil. But you can't get the oil until the olive is crushed. The olive has to go through pain in order to get to its power. Give me the picture, y 'all. Y 'all should be with me. That was the cue right there. In order for the olive oil to come out, the olive must be hurt. You got to be hurt if you're going to help. You can't get olive oil if you're going to help. Olive oil from an olive that has not been pressured, that has not been under anxiety, that has not been crushed." [27:39] (38 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


7) "Your value is in what you've suffered and what you've survived. That's what people need. People don't need a faith of just somebody who's everything been lovely. That ain't real. I need to hear from somebody who's been through this. You understand what I'm saying? One thing you can guarantee, he will comfort you. And this is another thing he will do. Once he comforts you, he will use you by giving the others the same comfort you got because he's going to send them to you." [32:48] (26 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)