Dysfunctional Comfort

Pastor Steven Furtick from Elevation Church in Charlotte, North Carolina preaches an excellent message about our comfort zones in this video.

I must admit that I love being comfortable. Why in the world would I want to expose myself to the frightening, uncomfortable and seemingly unsafe life outside of my comfort zone? The answer to that question is: the results. As I look back at my life, I can clearly see that growth and transformation always took place in an uncomfortable place. We don’t grow much inside our comfort zone, do we?

Who's Your Saul?

We all have people in our lives who irritate us and make our lives difficult. We think to ourselves: “If only that person could go away my life would be so much better.” We are right, our lives would be easier without that annoying person in it. Clearly comfort and ease isn’t God’s highest priority for us in this life, what God wants for us is holiness. What is holiness? Choosing to do the right thing despite the challenges, not because your life is free from challenges. If we take a closer look at our lives we will notice that this life is all about growth, God is refining us in the fire. It isn’t easy or comfortable to grow, but that is what this life is all about. Heaven will be different, heaven will be completely free from evil, but this world will never be that way.

King David was a guy who was tempted to get rid off the man who was making his life a living hell. David had an enemy named Saul who tried to kill him. One day when Saul was out looking for David with plans to kill him David had a chance to kill Saul. I bet David thought about it long and hard. He finally had a chance to kill the guy who was making his life so difficult. A chance to get rid off the problem once and for all. What problem or person do you have in your life that you wish you could get rid off?

David ended up feeling conscience-stricken for even considering the option of taking Saul’s life. David realized something that few of us realize. Was Saul making David’s life very difficult? Yes. Could God take away this difficult person out of David’s life if he wanted to? Yes. Then maybe, just maybe, there was a reason God left this difficult person in David’s life. What if that difficult person or problem that you want to get rid off is God’s tool for shaping you and growing you? We don’t just wake up one day and realize that we are holy. God is shaping us toward holiness every single day in this life. The truth is, if we only surround ourselves with people who like us and agree with us we don’t grow. There is a purpose for every blessing and there is a purpose for every struggle. What is God trying to grow in you through your current struggle? Is it patience? Is it compassion for others? Is God using this difficult situation in your life as a tool to shave off some of that selfishness in your heart?

When people are making our lives a living hell we hate them (or at least we resent them). We don’t want to honor them and respect them. The only way we can show honor and respect to a difficult person is if we zoom out. If we zoom in we notice that this difficult person has some serious issues that he/she should work on. Issues that isn’t our responsibility. But if we zoom out we will notice that there are some issues in our own soul that is making us choose to resent, disrespect or even hate the difficult person. 

We are all called by God to love people. The Bible is not calling us to love the nice, fun, friendly, happy, perfect people who have no issues. No, the Bible calls us to love people period. We all like the idea of love, until we realize how difficult love really is to accomplish. Here’s the thing: we say we want to be “all about love” but we lie to ourselves. Many times during the week we do not want love. We want to resent, dishonor, disrespect and maybe even hate others. We choose love. 

Love is always a choice. And God, who is in the business of shaping us toward holiness, is watching every step we take and seeing how we treat both the nice person and the difficult person. I’m not responsible for anyone else’s actions, but I’m responsible for every single one of my own actions. David says this about his difficult situation: “The LORD forbid that I should do such a thing to my master, the LORD’s anointed, or lay my hand on him; for he is the anointed of the LORD.” (1 Samuel 24:6) 

If we are going to be able to love people, even when they are making our lives difficult, we need to realize that every person on this Earth is God’s child. How dare we even consider doing something evil toward one of God’s children? Yes, this world is filled with people who are messed up and practicing evil, but that does not mean that we are free to hate them or dishonor them. When we realize that every situation we are faced with is a lesson in love and righteousness, we will be able to choose love. 

Here’s another thought: if we choose to not learn our lesson now, we can be sure that once our problem is gone God will send another difficult person our way to teach us that same lesson. There’s been so many times in my life that I believed that my problems would be over if only that difficult person was out of my life. I was wrong. Unless I learn what God is trying to teach me I will continue to run into similar problems year after year, and then I wonder why I have such “bad luck” in life. Let’s not waste our lives on repeating the same mistakes year after year.

Know Your Season

We all wish we could live lives that are constantly happy and easy. Lives where we can continue to accomplish new things without seasons of struggle or rest in between. But life wasn't built that way, we all go through different seasons in life. Seasons of growth, rest, fruitfulness and preparation. We can't fast forward through a season of growth because God knows exactly what we need in preparation for the next stage in our lives. God will never send us into the next season of life unprepared.

You might be going through a season in your life right now that feels uncomfortable, mundane or slow, but you can be sure that God is at work in your life. What may seem like a mundane season in your life might be exactly what you need to be prepared for what will come next. It's also helpful to remember that every season is temporary, which reminds us to stop and enjoy the sweet times in life and to not give up during difficult times.

The Challenge

I loved this sermon by pastor Steven Furtick from Elevation Church. Steven Furtick talks about how we have a tendency to want change in our lives but at the same time we refuse to step outside of our comfort zones. Growth and change is always very uncomfortable, so it's understandable that we try to escape it. As Christians we often come to church wanting to be changed but we don't want to be challenged. Steven Furtick points out: "Guess what? No challenge, no change!"

We often come to God asking him to change us but we also bring our list of things that we won't do and will do, and then we expect God to give us what we want based on our personal list of conditions. The problem with this approach is that change doesn't work that way. We can't show up at the gym with a long list of exercises that we refuse to do and still expect that we will get in shape. If we truly want to get in shape we are going to have to do some of the less comfortable and fun exercises to be able to develop new strength in our bodies. We have to challenge ourselves to grow strong in our bodies and it's the same way with our minds and souls.

We also have a tendency to label ourselves and convince ourselves that we can't do certain things when the truth is that we won't do certain things. One example would be to say: "I'm just not a naturally optimistic and happy person" but the truth is that we can have joy in our lives if we make room for joy and choose to let go of the negativity and pessimism. I like what Steven Furtick says: "Where you started does not have to be where you stay." 

We often fail at things not because we didn't have it in us, but because we have convinced ourselves that we don't have it in us. If you have convinced yourself that you will never be better at handling money for example, chances are high that you will never grow in this area. God can do immeasurably more than we can think or imagine in our lives but we put limitations on our own capacities.

It will always be tempting to avoid growing in the areas of our lives where we know that we are weak. Why? Growth requires us to challenge our capacities and to do the work needed to grow. We choose to settle for staying where we are, and as a result life ends up being not near as spectacular as it could be. We put limits on ourselves and our capacities instead of challenging them. We serve a God who wants to do something great in our lives but each one of us can decide to take him up on that offer or to close the door on God and settle for small and comfortable.

Coming Home

Pastor Charlotte Gambill from Life Church in the United Kingdom teaches a sermon about God's house, the church. Many of us can sometimes find ourselves spiritually homeless, we are lost and drifting around in life. Sometimes we are lost because we don't know that God even exists but other times we are drifting because we have a consumer attitude towards the church. We come to church with a check list and if the church doesn't live up to all our expectations on it we will move on to another church. We might stay in one church for awhile but when we start to disagree on something with other people within the church we quit and move on. We are looking for a perfect church and we will never find it, just like we will never find a perfect person to marry. God's house, the church, is filled with imperfect broken people seeking God so it's always going to be an imperfect place.


I sometimes hear people say "I'm a Christian but I don't need a church, other Christians annoy me so I don't want to go to church." The problem with us deciding to love God but to avoid his people is that one of God's main commands for us is to love each other. God isn't calling us to love only those who agree with us on everything, who have the same hobbies as us and have the same priorities in life.


It is difficult to love people who are different than us. We are drawn to people who are exactly like us because loving them takes less effort. Loving people who are different than us takes effort, maturity and commitment. We are always tempted to quit a romantic relationship when it gets difficult rather than to stay and figure things out, the same way we can be tempted to quit church every time we disagree with others on something or feel like the church isn't living up to all our personal preferences.


Sometimes God calls us to move, to leave a relationship or a church and go somewhere else, but often he calls us to stay. It is very tempting to quit when life gets uncomfortable. Staying planted in one place can be one of the most difficult things in life but it's also one of the things that will grow us the most. There are some lessons that can not be learned any other way. There are also gifts that God wants to bless us with that he can't send us before we have set our roots down in a church. God knows that without the support, encouragement and wisdom from the church we won't be able to use the gifts well. We were built for community and on our own we can only grow so much. God chose people to be his hands and feet on Earth, we will not flourish in isolation.


God's house is the church and it can become the place where we belong, a place where we learn, get help, advise and wisdom, but if we keep looking for the perfect church we will never find it. God's aim is to transform our hard hearts and to make us more and more like Jesus, this will definitely be an uncomfortable ride at times. Life outside of our comfort zones can be difficult, scary and very inconvenient at times, but those who decide to stay planted will experience a growth that they would not have been able to attain any other way.