A Better Definition of Comfort

I don’t know about y’all, but I don’t typically enjoy signing up for things that make me uncomfortable. And somehow I’ve found myself being the girl who is repeatedly living this message; whispering (and in some cases shouting) to God for something, ANYTHING, to just feel comfortable.

What brings you comfort?

Is it the little things like your go-to comfy outfit? You know that one. The one you put on Sunday afternoon when it’s raining and you have absolutely no intentions of leaving the house or interacting with other humans for the rest of the day.

Or is the warmth in your hands as you hold your mug and drink your first cup of coffee for the day?

Maybe it’s your favorite home-cooked meal surrounded by the people you love most. You know, there is  a reason they call it comfort food.

Maybe it’s more than that. Maybe what brings you comfort is the neighborhood you live in, or the size of your bank account. Or your relationship status or the number of people who follow you on Instagram.

Whatever it is, in one way or another, we all cling to comfort.

But is that a bad thing? What’s wrong with comfort? Doesn’t it make us feel good?

Safe? Secure? Steady?

Comfort in and of itself is not a bad thing. But when we start looking to things that aren’t constant as a source of our comfort, we quickly lose it.

Because comfort has a cost. And it’s missing the calling.

God called Israel to be His people—holy and set apart in the land of Canaan, which He promised Abraham in Genesis 12. But when we find the Israelites at the beginning of Exodus, it seems they had gotten rather comfortable in Egypt, which was not supposed to be their home.

While the Israelites are living in Egypt, they forced into slavery, but it wasn’t until their circumstances got to their absolute worst that they cried out to God to deliver them.

In Exodus 6:2-8 we see God’s response to their discomfort:

 “God also said to Moses, “I am the Lord. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as God Almighty, but by my name the Lord I did not make myself fully known to them.  I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, where they resided as foreigners. Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the Israelites, whom the Egyptians are enslaving, and I have remembered my covenant.

“Therefore, say to the Israelites: ‘I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. I will free you from being slaves to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment. I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God, who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians.  And I will bring you to the land I swore with uplifted hand to give to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. I will give it to you as a possession. I am the Lord.’”

God reminded them of who He was, what He promised them and who He called them to be. But it took them getting really uncomfortable before were ready to leave Egypt and go to the land they were promised.

As soon as they get to the wilderness, the cycle starts again. They are uncomfortable with the unknown and start to wish they were back in Egypt. There was at least the comfort of food there.

The familiar felt more comforting than freedom.

While they were in the wilderness, they had to learn to trust God for manna. Which, they eventually got more comfortable with, but it wasn’t long before they got tired of waiting in the wilderness.

When they decided to try to take control of their circumstances, they made idols to worship instead of God and their whole generation missed out on the promised land.

Now, I’ll be the first to raise my hand and say it: I love comfort. Comfort makes me feel like I am in control. And when I feel like I am in control, I can coast my way through life not bothering to stop and listen to where God is calling me to or to who He is calling me to be.

The problem with clinging to this definition of comfort, is that the second I start to lose it, I look to coping mechanisms to be the solution for my discomfort. I may not be making golden calves to worship in the dessert, but I’m certainly making my own idols to help me cope.

I don’t think I’m alone in that either. And I’m afraid my generation is going to miss out on the Promised Land because we got stuck in the wilderness grumbling and complaining, looking back on Egypt like it was better.

I see myself doing this constantly—wishing for the season I was in before. The season I used to complain about. Because at least I knew what that was going to look like, there was comfort in the familiarity, even if I wasn’t living in freedom.

We know that eventually Israel made it to the Promised Land. But the problem was that the Promised Land was never supposed to be the goal; the Promised Land meant was to point them to the Promised One.

And if you keep reading the rest of the Israel’s story, we see this pattern being repeated again…and again…and again.

God calls Israel to be His holy and set apart people, and instead they chose to seek their own comfort.

If we are not careful, we can miss this too. As we wait for the arrival of Jesus, the Promised One, it would be easy to look to our own definition of a “promised land.” It would be easy to focus our attention on and look for comfort in the potential promises of the future: a vaccine, a world without mask mandates or social distancing, life to go back to normal as we knew it before COVID-19.

But I dare to say, I think God is offering us a different invitation. A better definition of comfort. An opportunity to be who He’s called us to be instead of just trying to cope. A chance to find true comfort in the Comforter He gave us in the Holy Spirit.

2 Corinthians 1:3 says, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.”

Can we take an honest look at what we are clinging to for comfort?

Can we release our need for comfort in our circumstances and instead look to God to be only our source of comfort?

Can we open our clenched hands and guarded hearts, trusting that when He calls us to uncomfortable places, He is offering to meet us there?

Can we choose to look to the Promised One instead of the Promised Lands we’ve created?

Always,

Meghan