Embrace – Uncomfortable by Lt. Betsy Clark
2 Corinthians 12:10 “That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weakness, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
When I hear the word embrace, I think of warm grandmother hugs and brown paper packages tied up with string, filled with all of my favorite things – like chocolate and Netflix. These are all things I am more than happy to embrace. So imagine my confusion when God asked me to embrace being uncomfortable.
When I first started hearing this from the Lord, my response was, “Really?!? Being a single officer in charge of a new corps on my own isn’t enough? Don’t I walk the line of being uncomfortable almost every day?” But as I continued to seek the Lord, I began to realize that even though to other people my ministry might seem uncomfortable, it had become a comfort to me.
I am comfortable being an officer. I am comfortable being moved from place to place. Even with new dynamics and new places and new faces, it all seems to be a part of my normal life now. I am comfortable in my devotional life and my prayer life. I just feel comfortable.
What my comfort said to me was I had stopped taking risks in my ministry. I had stopped being daring in my public pursuit of the lost and my private pursuit of God. I don’t want to say I was just going through the motions, but I think I became content with maintaining things the way they were.
God is reminding me that he hasn’t called me to comfort. He has called me to obedience and he has called me to a relentless pursuit of HIM. So even though I am comfortable with my life, shouldn’t I be willing to make it a little uncomfortable in order to have a greater, deeper experience of my Savior? Shouldn’t I be willing to shake things up a bit in my ministry to ensure that people are coming to know Christ?
I want to embrace the uncomfortable – not for the sake of simply shaking things up, but for the sake of a greater, deeper experience of God in my life and in the lives of others.
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