In certain situations, being comfortable is the worst thing possible.
If it’s Ice-Age-cold outside, it’s best not to get too comfortable.
If you’re working with extremely dangerous equipment that could easily alter your figure or your DNA, it’s best not to get too comfortable.
- Image via Wikipedia
Or if you find yourself sitting across the dinner table from Dr. Hannibal Lecter, it’s best not to get too comfortable.
In these cases and many others, being uncomfortable is a good thing…
it might even save your life!
We all like being comfortable, but we should recognize comfort can be a slippery slope. A little comfort is a good thing and enhances life. You could even argue a certain amount of comfort is necessary for survival.
But with too much comfort, something happens. Our senses become deadened, we slip into a coma-like, almost-vegetative state, and turn into medicated-zombies. Too much of a good thing becomes a bad thing.
When we like our comfort too much, we become obsessed with protecting and maintaining it… at all costs. We’re constantly on guard against anything that might rock the boat.
When we like our comfort too much, there’s no way we’ll do something that might make us uncomfortable. We have a tendency to walk through life half-asleep, with our head in the clouds.
When we like our comfort too much, we’re happy with how life is. We ignore the facts that we are not yet who we are to be, that the world is not yet what it is to be, and that we have an active role to play in these things coming about.
When we like our comfort too much, we’re not very interested in making a difference, of serving, of living for another.
We must remember we were not called by Christ to be comfortable or complacent. We were called to count the cost, to serve the least of these, to be living sacrifices.
The best thing for you and I is a healthy level of dissatisfaction. Of discomfort. Of longing for what is to come. At least enough to get us off the couch…
So how much discomfort can you handle? How much do you want?