Get Comfortable Being Uncomfortable

I recently purchased a new recliner. I got it for comfort. I let my wife choose the color. I didn’t care about that. For me, it was all about comfort.

Much of what we do is about comfort. We hang around with people we are comfortable with.  Our political and social affiliations are guided by our comfort levels.

We go to churches where we are comfortable. Churches are designed to make us comfortable. Now they have coffee bars, comfortable seating, and feel good programs. I don’t think Jesus meant for us to be so comfortable. In fact, we are designed to be UNcomfortable. We grow and learn in discomfort. We are meant to get our comfort only from God.

Jesus promised to send us a Comforter, the Holy Spirit. If we make ourselves comfortable we perceive no need for Him. We need to live in challenge. We need to live in recognition of our inadequacy without Him. We need to move out of the comfort and into the discomfort zone. 

In Jeremiah 1, we learn how we are designed from before our birth to fulfill a need. That design doesn’t include obvious attributes that make us perfect for our calling. Instead, the design includes inadequacies that ensure our need for reliance on and glory for the Comforter. When God tells Jeremiah about His designed purpose for him since before his birth, Jeremiah responds with a litany of the inadequacies which make him inadequate. He says he’s too young and poor of speech. God responds:

⁷ But the Lord said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am too young.’ You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you. ⁸ Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you,” declares the Lord.

⁹ Then the Lord reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, “I have put my words in your mouth. ¹⁰ See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant.” Jeremiah 1.

I love sitting in my recliner. It takes great effort to get out and do the things that need to be done each day. I don’t fulfill my purpose unless I’m out of the recliner, hauling grandkids, driving my wife to ministry, serving in prison, or just being around those who need encouragement. 

Comfort is great, but it’s meant to be fleeting, and temporary. Service and growth lies elsewhere, in the places of our inadequacies and discomforts.