Growth or Comfort?

Quick question...if you could choose one or the other, would you choose growth or comfort?  Which have you chosen lately?

I’m more and more convinced that growth and comfort normally don’t go hand and hand.  Growth is difficult and can be extremely painful.  Many kids hurt when they’re growing.  The same is true in life.

When life feels unbearable, that is usually when we’re growing.  We can’t see it in the moment, but that’s usually when God is growing us more into the likeness of His Son.

The Bible says He draws near to the broken hearted.  I don’t know about anyone else, but normally when I’m broken hearted God feels incredibly distant.  Why is that?

We as Christians believe the Holy Spirit lives within us.  So why does God feel so far away?  Why do our souls feel as though they’re in a desert if living water dwells within us?  Why is growth so incredibly uncomfortable?

Going through deserts is something none of us enjoy.  It has occurred to me over the last few years though that perhaps there’s a way to redeem these times.

A friend of mine asked me in Myanmar in 2014 how I was allowing Jesus to meet me in my loneliness.  It was a very rough time in my life; Stef and I had gotten engaged about a month earlier, my best friends were back stateside fundraising and I just didn’t have many people to talk to.  As an extrovert it was painful to be that lonely.

So I was caught off guard when she asked me that.  How am I allowing Jesus to meet me in my loneliness?  What?  It was a great question and one I still reflect on from time to time in different variations.  

How am I allowing Jesus to meet me in this situation?  How am I laying this discomfort I’m experiencing before His feet and allowing Him to grow me through whatever this current situation is?  

Have you asked yourself these types of questions recently?