Don’t write this off by the title. Let me explain.
I’m not saying that love and comfort are bad things, but I think the stigmas we have placed on each of these need to be reevaluated.
Let’s start with love – we all know that anyone under the age of 18 uses this word too loosely. Our society as a whole doesn’t know how to handle “love” or even define it. We often live our lives in a false sense of love and “loving” others under these false ideas.
Revelation 2:4 says we have abandoned our first love and throughout the Bible (as a whole) we are commanded to “love others as yourself,” but we don’t really know how to do that. Sometimes we get caught up in the way things look and how comfortable (or uncomfortable) they are and base our love off of that.
That’s where comfort comes in – what is comfort? Someone tweeted today that change comes in uncomfortable situations. It’s true.
When I graduated from high school four whole years ago I was asked to visit a friend in Germany for a few weeks (and by friend I mean my mother’s friend). This meant flying for the first time ever, flying *alone,* and hanging out with people I didn’t know for an extended period of time.
I couldn’t call my mom to come and pick me up.
I was stuck.
But it was on the plane to Germany that God revealed His glory to me among the clouds and incomprehensibility of being WAY.UP.THERE. and not falling out of the sky.
It was in Germany for weeks that God proved His constant presence in my life, even when I felt alone or sad or uncomfortable.
It was in being uncomfortable that God changed who I was – a shy little kid – to someone who wasn’t afraid to take a step.
Not too soon after, I moved out for the first time and into a dorm in college. I was a week early because of work training, but had a lot of time alone. I remembered crying quite a few times, but absolutely realizing how present God was in my life because I was never really alone. I was ridiculously uncomfortable – in somewhere that hadn’t quite become home yet with no one I knew – but God was there.
And here I am again – uncomfortable. I’m kind of jumping house-to-house right now and borrowing a truck and working a few hours at a local coffee shop…instead of going home. I don’t like depending so much on other people because I feel like a leech. But right now, I’m finding myself feeling most loved by the community and family that have become my home in the last four years. I’m absolutely not ready to leave yet.
But in a few months, I’ll have to leave..and travel..and be in a different ‘home’ each month for a year. A year. A whole twelve months. Missing the graduation of my two closest friends, probably missing my grandfather’s passing and funeral, and maybe a wedding or two.
That’s uncomfortable to me. Especially the missing-out-on-friends thing. God uses times of discomfort and distance to keep me from being too attached to my friends and to find my significance in making HIM more significant in my life.
Just like Joshua and the Israelites. You’ll probably see this portion of scripture come up so much in my life, but it’s changed my life – God called them into the middle of the Jordan river – in the middle of HARVEST when its banks are overflowing with rushing water – before He would part the waters. He had to make them uncomfortable – an irreversible step. A step you can’t take back.
So I guess this post boils down to this: Romans 13:8 says to owe no man anything but to love them because love fulfills the law. Am I loving people well? Am I loving my family in Rome and in Perry well? What about my squad? What about God? Am I loving GOD well? What does *loving well* look like? Have I abandoned all else to return to my first love – to the mission God gave me? Is my life clear of all the messy “love” displayed in today’s society? Is my heart loving in grace and truth so that other people will see God? Revelation goes on to say that God will pretty much take our light away if we aren’t walking in HIS love. And Matthew 5 calls us to be lights to the world of God’s glory. Am I doing that well?
Am I sacrificing comfort in order to love well? Am I too comfortable? Is comfort my priority, or am I willing to give it all up for God? Even though I’ve ‘decided’ to go on the Race, am I doing it just so I “look good” to others, or is this an all-for-God kind of thing? Is my heart humble in its love? Am I taking steps I can’t take back – stepping outside of the little box I try to rule in my life and letting God have it all so that I can be more satisfied in Him and, therefore, glorify Him?
I know that’s a lot of questioning, but just think about it for a bit. What’s your focus?
