My teammate, Gaby, and I were sitting in one of our classrooms chatting one morning. She in her striped shirt and I in one of my own, when she turned to me and said “I’m just sitting here in my striped shirt…and I don’t know.” “What don’t you know?” I asked. “I don’t know.”
Life in Malaysia isn’t what I expected it might be…nor is it really what I would have ever chosen it to be.
I don’t live in a super awesome town with cute coffee shops at every corner. I don’t live with a host family that pours into me and calls me higher daily. I don’t have ministry that gets me excited to wake up in the morning. I don’t get to talk about Jesus to people or even around people. I don’t get to worship as loud as I want without second thought. I don’t have my full health. I don’t have a bed. I don’t have air conditioning. I don’t have hot showers. I don’t even have a lid to our crockpot which is one of the very few kitchen appliances we have.
I say all of this, not to make you feel bad for me, but to share with you a revelation I have had.
None of it matters.
And not just because I am leaving this place in two months or because I get to have the comforts of America again in 5 months. No, it is because God is redefining comfort, simplicity, and gratitude in my life.
C O M F O R T
I, as well as most all Americans, was raised to make comfort my first priority. Whether you realize it or not, and whether you were raised that way intentionally, I can almost bet that if you’re an American and you’re reading this right now, I’m talking about you.
What do you do when you’re hungry? Go get food from one of the nearest fast-foods joints or maybe go into your kitchen and grab a snack from your fridge that’s full of options.
What do you do when you’re bored? Grab your iPhone and text a friend, asking them if they want to meet up. Grab your iPhone and scroll through all the social media apps like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, etc. Grab your iPhone and watch countless videos about things that are totally irrelevant, but give your mind something to rest on.
What do you do when you aren’t confident about your self image? Put on a trendy outfit, take a trendy photo, and put an even trendier filter on it so you can get likes on Instagram. Post a photo of your latest painting or of you and your friends that makes it look like you are happy.
What do you do when you’re hot or when you’re cold? Adjust your heating and air conditioning to your favorite temperature and go outside only if to get to your car which also has heating and air conditioning.
Sitting in the corner of the room, Gaby in her striped shirt and me in mine, we realized that we do all of these things. We are constantly looking for comfort. And we feel good about ourselves when someone says we are the best photographer they know or the best artist or that we have the trendiest style or the nicest hair. We feel good about our homes when we have heated floors and our own room with a big comfy bed. We feel good about our lives when we have answers to questions like What are you doing after high school? What’s your major? What career are you pursuing?
I am now convinced that everything I have ever said or done in life has been in a pursuit of comfort. Yet the problem isn’t in my pursuit of comfort, but in my pursuit being focused on things of vanity.
“Life is fleeting, like a passing mist. It is like trying to catch hold of a breath; All vanishes like vapor; everything is a great vanity.” -Ecclesiastes 1:1
Every comfort I have pursued has been within the confines of this fleeting life that I live. One day I will die…and it won’t matter if I had a closet full of trendy outfits, air conditioning to keep me comfortable, and the affirmation of peers who think I’m great at photography or painting or singing. I can’t take any of those earthly treasures to heaven with me.
“I have witnessed a grave evil pervading our world, one that has been with us since the first sunrise: harm comes to all who hoard their riches. Such riches can easily vanish through some misfortune, so that the rich have nothing left to pass along to their children. We all came naked from our mother’s womb, and we will leave this world as we came, taking nothing of the wealth for which we have toiled.” -Ecclesiastes 5:13-15
All of the comforts I have pursued in my life have been things of this earthly world. In order for my efforts to have eternal significance, I must begin to pursue comfort in the One Eternal God. This comfort, I can carry with me into the heavens in my passing. In seeking this eternal, heavenly comfort alone, I should never again feel the emptiness and vanity of this life, for I know the truth that all is fleeting, but my Heavenly Comfort stands eternal.
S I M P L I C I T Y
“There is nothing better than for people to eat and drink and to see the good in their hard work. These beautiful gifts, I realized, too, come from God’s hand.” -Ecclesiastes 2:24
Because of this truth revealed to me, I am beginning to learn what it means to live without. Not without clothes that I like or a house that has heating and air conditioning because these things, independent from misplaced desire, are not evil. What I am learning is that living with these things or without is vanity because I have true comfort from my Father in Heaven.
G R A T I T U D E
And now, with this eternal mindset, I begin to see what truly matters. I thank God, not for a bed to sleep in or clothes to wear, but for His Eternal goodness, for how He cares for me and desires intimacy with me, and for how His Ever-present Spirit wants to wrap me up in a heavenly comfort every moment of my life.
