We have been sold the lie that comfort and self-preservation is the goal of this life, and that the thing to say is “it’s complicated” or “it’s complex” when we want to avoid feeling—being—uncomfortable. It is not.
Truth is freeing and it makes us uncomfortable. We will choose easy narratives (including conspiracy theories) over Truth every time. We will choose snark or victimhood—whatever gets us out of the feeling that we are not safe—because we have also equated comfort with safety. That might be more subconscious than anything, but it is still there, and it is still a problem and a barrier to Truth who has a name and a face.
I can’t tell you exactly what He looked like, but His Name is Jesus and sometimes He is not comforting.
I just read John Chapter 6. He freaks everyone out with His talk of eating His flesh and drinking HIs blood and when they say “Um, that is crazy” and walk away He lets them go. It makes me belly laugh every time I read it. Jesus just says “bye” and let them go. Jesus lets us choose. Do we want comfort, or do we want Him?
Only we can answer that.
Honestly, I choose comfort all the time. And then I miss Jesus and go back. Being a Christian who seeks the Truth over comfort is not easy. It means knowing that suffering will come, and it will suck, and God will not make it better. He will just stand there with me and assure me that the day will come when every tear will be wiped away and every knee will bow, and I can choose to believe that or walk away.
Every single day is a new day to choose.
Jesus knows the fear and the anxiety of choosing Truth. He was sweating blood when He was in the garden praying about what was about to happen to Him. He asked the Father to take the cup of suffering away from Him but then surrendered to His Father’s Will. We must do the same even in the anxiety and fear.
Fear is natural and it is sometimes a motivator to do the right thing, but it can also make us selfish and greedy. Greedy with our resources, our lives and most of all greedy with our comfort. I think God knows this about us and that is why He tells us over and over and over to not be afraid. He knows that when we are afraid, we choose ourselves but when we look at Him and believe Him when He says “do not be afraid” that we surrender. It is in that surrender that our faith saves us. Everything other than that is us trying to control a narrative.
That never works out well.
Fear can bring us to do that opposite of loving our neighbor. Fear can have us yelling at people with masks on during a Global pandemic that they are sheeple and living in fear. Fear has us project our own … issues … on others. Fear will have us say that things are complicated when we simply are just too scared to look at ourselves. Fear will make us believe that adding people to the vineyard will someone mean less grapes for us.
Fear will have us lying to ourselves.
I hear people say “choose joy” all the time and I believe that joy, true deep joy is a gift of God. It is a Grace we can not choose, we can only choose to be open to it. But what we can choose is to be ok with being uncomfortable. We can choose to sit in situations that make us angry or jealous or uneasy and to ask Jesus to come into it and help us work it out.
“Where would we go?” is the question of people who invite Jesus into their discomfort. It is the question of Saints.
Leticia Ochoa Adams writes from Texas, on life, death, grief, suicide, faith, motherhood, doubts and whatever (else) happens to be on her mind.
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