Come Close

“We love because God first loved us.” This is a true statement, but there are other things that we do because God did them first, and made us in His image, to be like Him. We love, we create, we forgive, we serve, and, according to 2 Corinthians, we comfort or console because God has first comforted us.

Paul says in 2 Corinthians 1:8, “For we do not want you to be ignorant, brothers…” But, he’s not writing to share information. He’s writing to share his life, whatever it might include. He writes about difficulties. He writes of comfort, rejoicing, longing, mourning, zeal, grief, and regret…with tears, affliction, anguish, and abundant love. These are themes of our daily lives. Lives that are real, raw and messy. Lives that feature pain, death and grief – as well as healing, life and consolation. He pours out his heart and invites the Corinthian church into his world…not to feel badly for him, but to share the load.

Consolation. Para-kaleo. To call close.

Musician Christa Wells tells the story behind her song “Come Close Now.” About grief, it’s like "Being in this room upstairs in a house that is burning down and I'm strapped in a chair. And outside this house there are all these people running around with fire hoses and ladders and sirens and they are trying to fix it and make it better but I'm still alone up in this room. Eventually one, maybe two, people just quietly make their way up the front walk and they open the front door of the house and they walk up to this room that I'm in and they pull up a chair beside me and they sit down and they just sit in the burn with me." – Dan Walser, To Make a Life

Consolation isn’t about rescue, or about saying the right words to make somebody feel better. It’s not about moments of laughter in the midst of suffering. It’s about proximity. It’s about coming close.  You can be in a fishing boat, or taking a walk, sitting down to dinner, or having a beer, and be doing exactly the kind of thing Jesus did when He came close to His disciples.  

Let’s be conscious about coming close to one another. Let’s enjoy and share this life together. Might as well start now, since we’ll be together for eternity, too!