Uncomfortable;
Webster’s definition: “causing or feeling slight pain or physical discomfort, causing or feeling unease or awkwardness.
Definition from a 5-year-old boy: “Not being able to drink a juice box and just watch cartoons all day with my mom and dad- instead I have to read and clean my room.”
Who doesn’t like to be comfortable? In the summer when it’s too hot, I crank up the AC. When I’m cold in the winter, I blast the heat. I tend to gravitate towards situations that I’m used to, with people I already know.
I love being comfortable, it’s easy.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to be at ease. It’s when we become too comfortable that our spiritual growth is challenged.
Since announcing God’s calling on my life to embark on the World Race, every ounce of comfort I had has vanished. My vulnerability has skyrocketed to heights I never imagined. I am becoming the definition of uncomfortable. God is showing me that in order to do what He has planned for me, I don’t get to “have my juice box and watch cartoons all the time.”
The events in which I’ve had to step the farthest out of my comfort zone, are the times in which I’ve grown the most and grown closer to God in the process.
- Like speaking to strangers about what God has done in my life
- Or asking for donations from people I rarely have contact with.
- Like asking for prayer from people who don’t understand what I’m doing
- Or just asking for help
In all these hard moments I exposed myself. I allowed myself to be vulnerable. And I learned to trust, to rely not on myself, but on God.
The path to a miracle is always through uncomfortable territory.
For instance —
- When Moses led the Israelites out of slavery to the Promised Land, they had to go through the Red Sea first.
- Before David could slay Goliath, he had to walk onto the battlefield.
- God told Jehoshaphat to put the choir before the army, and he’d win the victory. How much faith do you think that took?
The hard truth about God is that His deepest desire isn’t for me to be comfortable. I know he loves me, and I believe He wants me to be happy, but I also believe that he has called me to be uncomfortable, at least sometimes- because it’s in discomfort that I am much more likely to grow closer to him.
“But God doesn’t call us to be comfortable. He calls us to trust Him so completely that we are unafraid to put ourselves in situations where we will be in trouble if He doesn’t come through.”
-Francis Chan
Without a juice box,
Tiffany
