I’m very comfortable at my church. When I walk in to the building, into the sanctuary, it is a very welcoming, relaxed, environment. Everyone is friendly, the pastors are all approachable and real, the services and the worship are energizing and familiar. I’m very comfortable.
And that’s a bad thing. I realized this recently when our youth pastor was speaking on a Sunday morning. He speaks regularly, so it wasn’t something new for me. I enjoy his preaching. But in the middle of his message, he asked us to turn to someone sitting near us and say something to them. I don’t recall now exactly what it was, but I remember the distinct feeling of discomfort I felt because there happened to be no one near me that I knew. “I’m not doing that,” I thought. “I’m not here to discuss things with strangers, I’m here to worship God and hear the message and learn something new. This is really uncomfortable.”
At which point it occurred to me that perhaps that’s exactly what God wanted.
Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying church should be uncomfortable. I like that it’s friendly, inviting, and I can feel free to be myself there. I don’t have to put on my “Sunday” face when I walk in.
But I realized that once I’m comfortable, I tend to stay where I am. I don’t grow. I don’t live. And God can’t work in me or through me any more.
I don’t have to look back on my life to see times when being comfortable caused me problems; I just have to look back on the last year. Over and over again, God has made me uncomfortable because where I was comfortable was where he didn’t want me to be. It was a place where I was at best complacent and at worst sinful. And none of them were places where I was getting closer to Him, glorifying Him, and making a difference for His kingdom.
I realized, sitting there in that uncomfortable moment, that when God asks me to do something uncomfortable, it means that I have settled into a rut and need to get up off my behind and get moving again.
I have heard that death by hypothermia is ultimately a quiet and peaceful way to go. At first, of course, you shiver uncontrollably and there is pain as your extremities freeze. But eventually, as your core temperature drops, the shivering ceases, your mind quiets, and your body settles into a comfortable numbness. Eventually you lose consciousness and die.
The Pink Floyd song “Comfortably Numb,” although certainly not written with the spiritual parallel in mind, describes well what I think happens to us when we stop letting God push us out of our comfort zone:
There is no pain, you are receding.
A distant ship’s smoke on the horizon.
You are only coming through in waves.
Your lips move but I can’t hear what you’re sayin’.
When I was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse,
Out of the corner of my eye.
I turned to look but it was gone.
I cannot put my finger on it now.
The child is grown, the dream is gone.
I have become comfortably numb.
When we get too comfortable, our spiritual temperature drops, we stop moving, and we settle into that same comfortable numbness. God’s lips move, but we can’t hear what He’s saying. Whatever fire we had for God when we were spiritually young now seems like a fading dream—a fleeting glimpse out of the corner of our eyes.
God does want to be our comforter:
Lord, you know the hopes of the helpless. Surely you will hear their cries and comfort them. (Psalms 10:17, NLT)
Consider this, however:
God is our merciful Father and the source of all comfort. He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. (2 Cor 1:3-4, NLT)
God should be the source of our comfort. But if we’re already comfortable, how can He be our comforter? Notice why we have troubles and why we need God’s comfort: it is so that we can turn around and pour the comfort into other people. If I’m sitting comfortably in that place where I don’t have to work or grow or change or even interact with anyone else, how will I possibly be able to comfort someone who is hurting?
My prayer every day needs to be, “God, let me not get too comfortable in my walk with you. Let me not ever get to the place where I don’t learn anything new from you. And if I do, make me uncomfortable so that I get up and start moving again.”
