Week 4 | day twenty-two

Comfort and Peace 

Now, faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. Hebrews 11:1 You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you! Isaiah 26:3 

Oh, goodness, I love comfort.  Give me a cozy blanket, a good conversation, or a movie, and I am a happy clam.  I want relationships to be easy, for laughs to roll freely and things to fall in place.  I want a life without a rocking boat.  I think it’s what I chase after often…comfort.  I can't say I think any one of these things is wrong, or inherently damaging, can you?  But, I've been rethinking comfort.

The best (and worst) part of comfort is that I want to keep being comfortable.  As I arrange my life for ease, the thought of interrupting it becomes daunting, even scary.  Adventure seems best left to movies, and conflict—best left out.

Yet, I find a yearning in my heart to follow the call of God and have my ready "yes" on the table the minute that He asks.  I want to be the hands and feet of Jesus.  I want to see His kingdom come…but see… I'm comfortable.  If I step out of my aptly named "comfort zone" that will change.  

It's true, that comfort isn't just coziness, ease, and the absence of conflict.  It's also, to some extent, predictability.  I think it’s a way that I've tried to manufacture peace.  I've come face to face with that very reality in these coronavirus days.  I noticed how much of my comfort and peace was tied to knowing what to expect.  I found the false security I'd built in predictability vanish as if it were a mist.  In a flash, in early March, I found comfort to be shaky ground, and I found myself asking where I could find my peace again.  

And here is where I landed: comfort is a thief.  It feels important.  It masquerades as peace but is, in fact, not peace.  It is the sneakiest kind of thief.  It steals without us noticing and convinces us that we're okay with being robbed from.  It can take days and years and opportunities away from us in a simple lull.  It can close our eyes to the people around us.  It can cause us to think that every adversity must be outside of God's good and perfect plan.  So, what happens when we wake up to find that so much has been stolen from us while we chased comfort?  How can we return to the Source of true (and lasting) peace?  I think we turn to Scripture to remind us of our purpose.

We are but vapors, Scripture says (James 4:14).  And it also says that The Father has prepared good works for us beforehand to do (Ephesians 2:10).  He has commissioned us to reach the world (Matthew 28:19-20).  Our time is short!  The mission is critical!  He is our perfect peace AND We are meant to be His hands and feet.  Those are not conflicting ideas in the kingdom of God.

Our purpose is to be on mission with God and trust him with our peace. 

Ah.  There's the secret.  Trust.  Faith.  Believing that "He who called us is Faithful" (Hebrews 10:23).  Comfort is truly a state of the soul, of one who really, truly believes that our God is Big and we are in His care.

In his book "Giants Must Fall, " Louie Giglio said this: "Let's step out in faith and believe that God is big.  Let's not work it out on paper first, because we can't work it out on paper. Let's let God work it out in our lives, and let’s let His story become our story."

By comparison, comfort is a poor king when we realize we serve the King of Kings. 

That very King left the comforts of Heaven to step into our most significant need.  He took on sin and shame when He could have been enthroned in Heaven.  And He's calling us into the game to make a difference. And He has made every provision for us to do so.

Today's Prayer: Lord, show me today where I have made comfort and predictability King.  Root out any false security that I have chosen in comfort.  Lord, will you give me eyes to see Your adventure and where I can join You?  Will You remind me how faithful You are and give me the courage to trust You again and again?  Be my Perfect Peace, oh God!

Today's Challenge: Ask Holy Spirit to reveal to you if there is any area where you value comfort over His call.  Ask Him to show you how to practically choose Him as your source of peace and comfort.