Discomfort

ByHal Hammons

Discomfort is the price of admission for a meaningful life, I was told recently. I wish it weren’t true, like we all do.  But it is true, and I choose to accept it and embrace it instead of denying it.

Anything significant is not only going to be worth pain, it is going to cause pain.  Parenting.  Work.  Service.  Certainly a life of faith in Jesus would fit here.  Being crucified, for instance, sounds less than appealing (Galatians 2:20).  And yet we constantly use “discomfort” as an excuse for any aspect of our life in Christ that we want to avoid.  Evangelism is awkward.  Hospitality is inconvenient.  Public participation is embarrassing.  Foot-washing, either literal or figurative, is degrading. 

Well, you can live that way if you want.  And our God is a loving, merciful God; He may decide to save you in heaven — even though His expectations of you, “a living and holy sacrifice” (Romans 12:1), may not look much like what you are offering.  But you will never have the meaningful life in Christ that is available to you down the path of discomfort.  That I can guarantee.  By disciplining ourselves (1 Corinthians 9:27), by rejecting selfishness (Philippians 2:2), by embracing the burden of the extra mile (Matthew 5:41) — this is how you plumb the depths of Jesus.

So embrace discomfort — “so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:17-19).

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