Isaiah 40:1-2
"Comfort, comfort my people", says your God. "Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed and her sin has been paid for, that she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins."
Double use of a word in Scripture means its an imperative point God wants to get across to us. In this case He is telling us to "comfort greatly" his people.
Selection from Streams in the Dessert:
Store up comfort. This was Isaiah's mission. The world is full of hurting and comfortless hearts. But before you will be competent for this lofty ministry, you must be trained. And your training is extremely costly, for to make complete, you too must endure the same afflictions that are wringing countless hearts of tears and blood. Consequently, your own life becomes the hospital ward where you are taught the divine art of comfort. You will be wounded so that in the binding up of your wounds by the Great Physician, you may learn how to render first aid to the wounded everywhere. Do you wonder why you are having to experience some great sorrow? Over the next ten years you will find many afflicted in the same way. You will tell them how you suffered and were comforted. As the story unfolds, God will apply the anesthetic He once used on you, to them. Then in the eager look followed by the gleam of hope that chases the shadow of despair from the soul; you will know why you were afflicted. And you bless God for the discipline that filled life with such a treasure of experience and helpfulness.
God comforts us not to make us comfortable but to make us comforters. ~ John Henry Jowett
