Comfort Is Overrated

Recently I returned from a 1500 mile motorcycle ride up to Lake Superior and back from my home in Kansas. I spent two days by that beautiful, cold, blue lake and a couple days travelling. It's nice to get away and be alone sometimes. It separates you from all your props and the conveyor belt of normal life. The thing is, when you're by yourself, you have to deal with yourself. 1500 miles is a lot of time to spend inside your helmet with your own thoughts. Frankly, I didn't like a whole lot of what I found. I spent 100 miles or so between Mason City, Iowa and Minneapolis, Minnesota sifting through my soul and letting the Holy Spirit show me places where I need work. The road to holiness is so often hard, and it seems sometimes like my hiking boots are heavily caked with mud. I've been pondering sanctification lately and the strange journey it seems to be. The older I get, the more disappointed I am with the sludge I keep finding inside and the new ways I find to show off my fallen nature. It's not as if I'm not making progress - God is faithful and has brought me far - but I'm not as good as I once thought I was or should be by now . . .

This kind of work that God does in our lives is never comfortable. But, I realized something after one particularly chilly and saddle-sore day of riding: comfort is overrated.

First, in terms of motorcycling, the fact that I may be slightly wet and shiver now and then and after a couple hours need to shift my seating position to keep my bum from going numb, just isn't really a factor in my enjoyment of the experience. I'll go riding again and again, because the goodness of travelling this way far surpasses the little inconveniences.

Second, in terms of spiritual growth, comfort has never made me any stronger or any wiser. Not once. Anything I've learned has been an outgrowth of difficulty or danger or depression or doubt or discipline. Comfort is nice, but it's overrated. Squirming a little under God's steady hand of discipline or in His refining fire is much to be preferred to not having Him working in my life at all.

So, I'm going to be happy to be comfortable, and I'm going to try to learn to be content when I'm not.