“I don’t want comfortable.”
I wrote it in all caps, in the center of the page I was journaling on. An oasis of an entry after nearly giving up on writing last month due to apathy. I proceeded to write about all the comforts last month offered, how dissatsifed I was and how the last 24 hours I had learned and grown more than the entire time I was in Johannesburg.
In the heat of the day, I finally allowed myself to process one of the lowest times of the Race for me and also the most regressive, but even more so, how much truth and life had been spoken into me by my fellow Racers within the last day. “Our squad has grown so much,” I wrote. “They are so Spirit-led, so much more at peace than I’ve ever seen them before. I don’t want that to stop.”
Then talk to them, he said. Excuse me? You know you have words swirling in your head, and they’re swirling for a reason. Talk to them. You just said you didn’t want comfortable.
You know those moments when you pray something and then practically laugh at how quickly it’s answered and how stretching it’s going to be? Yep.
I fought it all day. I tried to block out his voice, tried to calm my racing heart. No. No, no, no. I’ve talked to countless audiences on the Race, in different countries, with a translator. But my squad—my peers—those who have seen me vulnerable and weak? God was taking it up a notch.
Long story short, I spoke that night. As I struggled to come up with an outline of sorts, I kept getting the feeling that God wanted me to scratch all presuppositions for what I thought I was going to say. Mind racing, heart pounding, but oddly at peace, I shared my heart in the dimly lit meeting space.
To be honest, I don’t remember a whole lot of what I said. But one line has replayed over and over in my mind since then: “Don’t settle for being comfortable, because I can tell you, it’s not satisfying.”
I realize, as I have every time I’ve spoken on the Race, that God is speaking directly to me through my own words. This line, and my heart behind sharing, has been the best way to enter Botswana. Because let me tell you, this month is definitely up there in the more uncomfortable times of my life.
Rejecting comfort is sleeping in a mosquito net, being thankful for a roof over your head and a door to keep the larger critters out.
Embracing the uncomfortable is watching your host dad shoot a black mamba (WHAT) then taking a photo with it and even touching it (screaming and running away still counts).
It’s accepting the sweat, heat and bugs, knowing that the cool satisfaction of the Spirit is often discovered overflowing in the dry lands.
It’s wiping away your sweat stache, knowing it will reappear in two minutes.
It’s squeezing eight bodies into a tiny Toyota truck for eight hours on a dusty, bumpy dirt road.
And it’s listening to and obeying God when he tells you to step out in faith and use your voice to speak instead of hiding behind written words.
I don’t want comfortable. Because if there’s anything I’ve learned these last seven months, it’s that life gets real outside your comfort zone. I challenge you to take a step out of that little circle, to stop dipping your toes in the water and just full on cannonball it, to speak the God-given words planted inside each of you.
Try it and I can promise you, you will be more than satisfied in the thirst of wanting more.
