What is comfort?
Is it a snickers bar? Thinking about my bed back home?
Or is it the whispered reminder of Your Presence with me wherever I go? That in the midst of newness and being stretched to walk into situations where I have no idea what to expect, I know that you have gone before me into those moments. Isn’t it so much sweeter to be filled with a comfort by the unchanging Comforter instead seeking it out through fleeting substances or fallible people?
Each morning as racers we don’t really know what to expect. I find myself shaking myself out of a mindset each day that just wants to check out and tend to my own needs. The Lord is calling me out. To see Him and gain an eternal perspective for each day, to realize He knows my needs before I even ask and is moving to meet them as soon as I open my mouth and make a request simply because I am His daughter. To be secure in that the Good Shepherd is tending to me and that I can be free to notice the needs of my brothers and sisters around me and seek their interests above my own.
Love is hard. It’s such a choice to push past the selfishness inside my own heart and make conscious effort to engage other people with love and kindness exactly where they are, no matter how messy the situation looks.
Love is bloody and seemingly illogical, like Jesus dying for those who beat, rejected, and spit on him. He died simply for the opportunity that some might come to Him and follow and accept the relationship and adoption offered to them. Lord, help us as your little church in our squad get this concept. Choosing You and choosing each other the way you choose us, even when we’re a broken mess.
In moments when I want to scream because I feel overwhelmed or feel lonely among 50 people, what will it take for me to CHOOSE to push past those emotions that can paralyze and give me tunnel vision? The Holy Spirit has been quick to rush in and direct my attention to where Jesus is in those moments of chaos. Jesus is calmly walking ON it all, like the in the story of the furious wind and waves that were terrifying Peter and the disciples. I have learned to so rely on myself that it really is taking me being placed in these stretching and breaking circumstances to cry out to Jesus to save me!
He is reminding me to look up, to fix my gaze on Him–to take His hand in trust to walk on the chaos of my circumstances WITH Him. He is in control, and He holds it all together. He will be my comfort because He is the true constant in the midst of continual change.
