Comfort.

I like being comfortable. I like that word in all areas of my life. I love nothing more than the perfect temperature outside to wear my favorite running shorts and a hooded sweatshirt. I love air conditioning in the summer and the heat my furnace provides in the winter. After a long run, nothing feels greater than a long shower. I love sleeping in a comfortable bed.

I love that I don’t have to think twice about stopping at the Super Target by my house if I’m out of something because I know I’m minutes away from a gallon of milk to a bottle of shampoo, that one store pretty much supplies everything I need.

I love the comfort of having all of the people I love nearby. Having friends or family over for dinner followed by a good game night fills my heart with joy. I love the convenience of only having to drive a couple of hours to see my immediate family. Something I took for granted my whole life until I moved 15 hours away and realized how uncomfortable I was without my family and best friends closer to me.

I love a beautifully set dinner table & large houses filled with picture perfect furniture. I like to daydream about potential vacations spent on a beach where I could lay out and read all day. I get excited when my new Vera Bradley catalogue comes in the mail or when I buy a new pair of shoes. I dream about raising children surrounded by people who know them and will pour into them their whole lives…about marrying a husband who will provide for me as a spiritual leader but also financially provide for us.

There’s nothing about comfort on every single level and piece of my life that doesn’t appeal to me. I’m onboard the comfort train.

The more I spend time hanging out with Jesus the more I’m realizing that I put my comfort before the ways He’s nudging me. The more I spent time in His Word—the less I see where comfort really brings real joy.

I’ve worried in writing this that I may offend maybe all 3 of you who read this blog in my saying that. I’m not saying every one is called to live in Africa. I’m not saying that every one is called to sell everything they own and give it to the church. But what has been pressing on my heart so much lately is that we use those extreme callings as excuses to sometimes put our own comfort and desires in front of a life that looks less like us and more like Jesus.

Sometimes the dreams of having more and being comfortable put God in a box. I’ve found myself there often… "Okay, Lord, I’ll follow you….but as long as it keeps me in a 20 mile radius of the people I love the most.” or “Okay, Lord, I surrender it all to you but that includes keeping my vacation home and my dream home, right?”

These are the words I keep coming back to, in Matthew 16:24-26, “Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?”

Denying self. That’s so hard. I feel like I’m in a constant state of attempting to deny myself to follow Jesus. It’s so easy to grip so tightly to the dreams of my heart.

But then I read about Paul. This is a guy—that when he took up his cross and followed Jesus…went for it. Went all out.  I love his words in Colossians Chapter 3 “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.  Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.  For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.”

 This is so much more fulfilling to me than any Pottery Barn picture perfect house could be. To think that I am now hidden within Christ—that He covers me in every way. Wow. It kind of takes my breath away when I stop and think about it…when I pray to allow my mind not to just be wrapped around that but to be refined in the truth that by setting my mind and heart on Jesus, my comfort will be found in HIM. He will provide ALWAYS even in the most uncomfortable situations when I rest in Him.

I all too often find myself stuck in that box. I allow comfort to trump my Savior who is holding me. I get caught up in wanting to have all the things my friends have instead of living in the freedom that I have been given the greatest gift…the greatest sacrifice.

I’m praying hard against wanting to remain comfortable. Sounds kind of crazy, I know. The words of a song roll around and around in this prayer…

Refiner's fire

My heart's one desire

Is to be holy

Set apart for You, Lord

I choose to be holy

Set apart for You, my Master

Ready to do Your will

Praying that this blog post would be less about writing these words and putting them out there—and more about living them.