I thought having teens was good for my prayer life, but that was nothing compared to having a child leave for college. 

It’s tough on a mama to know there’s not much I can do to help my son now that he’s out of the house. I can’t see if he’s eating well or getting enough sleep. I don’t know from day to day if he’s happy or sad or lonely or stressed. He doesn’t even bring his laundry home! 

But I can pray. 

This month we’ve been studying 2 Corinthians 1:3-11, and we’ve seen how God is our comfort, our hope, and our deliverer who grows our reliance on Him through times of affliction. Today, Paul closes this section by asking for the Corinthians’ prayers. 

“You also must help us by prayer, so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many.” (2 Corinthians 1:11) 

Sometimes we may wonder, if God is in control and already knows what will happen, why pray? This is a complicated question, but here’s one simple answer: in His Word, God commands us to pray. But this isn’t the only reason we pray for others. 

We see in today’s verse that our prayers help others. Paul wrote, “You must help us by prayer.” This truth is comforting to me when people I love are suffering from problems I can’t fix. I can’t take their pain away, but I can pray to the God of all comfort. 

This verse points out another reason to pray: Prayer leads to praise. When we pray, God gets all the praise and glory and thanks for the outcome. We’re acknowledging that He is at work in our situation. We’re placing our trust in Him, knowing His plans for us are good because He is good. 

And let’s remember that God’s sovereignty isn’t a reason not to pray – it’s a reason to pray. If God wasn’t sovereign, why would we bother asking Him to do anything? We have the privilege of praying to the one true God, the Maker and Ruler of all creation. He is the One with the power to answer our heartfelt prayers. 

No matter what you face this week, God hears your prayers for yourself and those you care about. 

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This month we’ve been studying lessons about affliction in 2 Corinthians 1. When we suffer, we receive God’s comfort, grow in hope, and deepen our reliance on God. Last week we saw that Paul and his companions suffered so badly that they weren’t sure they could survive it (2 Corinthians 1:8-9). This week’s verse gives us the foundation of Paul’s hope in dire circumstances: his hope in God’s deliverance. 

“He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again.” (2 Corinthians 1:10) 

Paul celebrated God’s past deliverance and counted on God’s future deliverance. He knew that God would either deliver him on this earth, or He would deliver him from this earth into his heavenly home. In fact, later in this letter, Paul says he would “rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8). 

This confidence reminds me of the confidence we see in Daniel 3 before Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were thrown into the fiery furnace by King Nebuchadnezzar. These three young Israelites were in exile in Babylon and had refused to down down to a golden idol. When Nebuchadnezzar asked what god would save them, they replied:

“If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.” (Daniel 3:17-18)

Like Paul, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego had confidence in God’s deliverance. They also trusted God’s purposes, even if the deliverance didn’t look the way they would choose. 

If you have placed your hope in Christ, God has already delivered you from sin and death through Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. Sometimes we may not understand why God doesn’t deliver us more quickly from our earthly trials. But when our hope is in Christ, this is the confidence we have in hard times: our God has delivered us, and He will deliver us again. 

No matter what you face this week, God is your deliverer. 

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My grandpa loved to tell the story of letting my dad drive a tractor when he was a young child. My dad sat on his dad’s lap with his small hands on the steering wheel as they drove over smooth ground. But when they hit a rough patch of bumpy road and the steering wheel bounced erratically, he would throw his hands in the air and yell, “Take it, Dad!” 

In a similar way, our suffering causes us to cry out to our Heavenly Father for help. When life is smooth, we are often lulled into thinking we can handle things on our own. Then the rocky patches come and we have no choice but to throw up our hands and plead with Him to pull us through. 

This month we’re walking through 2 Corinthians 1 and seeing how God cares for us and teaches us in affliction. We’ve seen God’s comfort and the hope He gives. This week we see in verses 8-9 that our affliction teaches us to rely on God: 

“For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.” (2 Corinthians 1:8-9)

In these verses, Paul told the Corinthians about his severe suffering—trials so severe that Paul and his companions hoped death would come quickly. But Paul saw God’s purpose in the pain. 

Like Paul, when our suffering pushes us to deeper reliance on the Lord, we find He is there, gripping the wheel, guiding us through the hard times. Our greater reliance on Him is a gift He gives us by His grace. 

And our reliance on Him is not in vain. When Paul felt he’d received a death sentence, he needed nothing less than One who raises the dead to life. God has proved Himself to be worthy of our reliance, our hope, and our trust. He is sufficient to see us through every affliction. 

No matter what you face this week, God will use your suffering to grow your reliance on Him. 

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Last month, as Hurricane Ian battered the Florida coast, the water and wind were so strong that even giant slabs of concrete couldn’t stand their ground. When a storm that powerful comes along, there’s not much that is left unshaken. And yet, in 2 Corinthians, Paul wrote about having a hope that is unshaken, no matter how bad the storm gets. 

This month we’re studying the lessons we learn from affliction in 2 Corinthians 1. Last week we saw how God is our comfort from 2 Corinthians 1:3-5. In the next two verses, we see how God uses affliction to develop patient endurance and unshakeable hope in His children. 

“If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort.” (2 Corinthians 1:6-7)

Paul knew from experience that as the Corinthians suffered affliction, they would need patience and endurance to persevere. This was Paul’s unshaken hope for them: that by the power of God’s Spirit, as they would endure because of God’s comfort. 

We see a similar line of thought in Paul’s letter to the Romans: 

“Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” (Romans 5:3-5)

Our dependence on God’s comfort isn’t just wishful thinking or hoping for a possible outcome, like we might hope for good weather or a winning football team. When we endure suffering and receive God’s comfort, God gives us hope that cannot be shaken by our circumstances. 

As Paul says in Romans, this hope does not put us to shame. We experience God’s presence and provision in hard times, and our confidence in His comfort grows. So the next time we walk through trials, we can more patiently endure because we know we have His comfort in every moment. 

No matter what you face this week, God’s comfort gives us unshaken hope. 

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