Comfortable?

So, I've been thinking a lot about comfort and how much I love it. Who doesn't, right? The comfort of my own home, the comfort of my relationships with people I know and love, the comfort of keeping my life as free of pain, inconvenience or irritation as I can. For the most part, my life is epitomized by comfort. But I've started to wonder lately, is God really all that concerned about my comfort? Does He just want me to make my life as nice and comfortable for myself and my family as I possibly can and along the way try to help others? As I've started to honestly mull this question over, guess what? I've become uncomfortable. Extremely uncomfortable.

My small group at church is reading "Crazy Love" by Francis Chan. You can find the link to the book's site on the left of my blog - I can't recommend it enough. In Chapter 7 Francis says "Life is comfortable when you separate yourself from people who are different from you. 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." And there it is. It seems to hinge on this issue of trust. It's true - if I completely trust God then I will gladly go running into the uncomfortable, the unknown, and the illogical. Sounds like a blast, right? Ha! Sometimes it does. But most times our logic, reason and fear completely get in the way of us allowing God to take us places we've never been before. God has been stirring me up inside to crave more discomfort. Yes, I know - those two words don't go together very well - crave discomfort??? But strangely I am finding the most amazing peace in the midst of my discomfort and perhaps the most clarity I've ever had. Hmmm....

Turns out that God is so present when we start to live beyond ourselves and move towards the uncomfortable. At least that's what I'm finding as I start to embrace God's heart for "the least of these". As I am opening my ears to hear His cry for them it is breaking me. Talk about discomfort. But it's beautiful. In fact, my prayer is becoming that I never long for the comfortable again. Because embracing discomfort means I'm allowing God space to show up - that I'm letting go of myself and learning to care about the things He does.