The Cost of Comfort

The Cost of Comfort

Journey of Men

I get severe muscle cramps. For years I searched for answers,

and I've finally found a few that genuinely help ease the pain

when it hits. It shows up in my fingers, my arms, my chest,

and most often in my legs — sometimes intense enough that

I've lost consciousness from it. It's real, physical discomfort,

and it is not subtle.

But there's another kind of discomfort I've been sitting with

lately, and it has nothing to do with muscles.

Sometimes it shows up in a hard conversation with my wife, a

moment with one of my kids, an offhand comment from a

coworker or a neighbor. Sometimes it's a financial pressure I

didn't see coming. Life happens, and we land in situations we

didn't choose and don't always know how to handle. And once

we're there, discomfort has a strange power — it dominates our

attention.Discomfort often occupies more space in our minds than joy does.

A hundred good things can happen in a single day, and one

uncomfortable moment can still be the thing we carry to bed with

us. One criticism can outweigh ten compliments without even

trying.

So I've been asking myself a harder question lately: what if

comfort itself has weakened us? What if our threshold for

discomfort has dropped so low that ordinary friction — a

disagreement, a delay, an inconvenience — starts to feel

intolerable? I'm not pointing this at anyone else. Vanity and

comfort aren't problems that belong only to other people. They

belong to me too.

A person with purpose can endure an extraordinary amount

of discomfort. Purpose is what makes discomfort bearable.

A husband and wife stay and work through a hard season because

the marriage is worth fighting for. I think a lot of us have simply

lost touch with our purpose along the way. So I'll ask you what I

keep asking myself: what is your purpose? What is your calling?

The future will undoubtedly ask difficult things of us. It always

has. There will be economic hardship, illness, a diagnosis, a

phone call, a loss we couldn't have predicted. The question is not

whether discomfort is coming — it's coming, for all of us. Thequestion is whether we have the ability to endure it.

I'm not claiming to have all the answers, or even all the strength

that will be required of me. But one thing I do know: the things

that have been the most uncomfortable for me to walk through

are the things that have made me stronger.

Leadership is uncomfortable.

Fatherhood is uncomfortable.

Building something of your own is uncomfortable.

Faith is uncomfortable.

My own dark night of the soul — and the godly men and women

who spoke truth and life into me during it — made me deeply

uncomfortable at the time. But it shaped who I am today. I've

grown in my capacity to let discomfort steer me in the right

direction instead of away from it.

Maybe the lesson isn't how quickly I can eliminate discomfort.

Maybe it's whether I can keep my eyes fixed on purpose while the

discomfort is still there. Becoming comfortable in the

uncomfortable is where growth gets to bloom.If discomfort has been loud in your life lately, and purpose feels

harder to locate than it used to — I'd be glad to talk it through

with you.

Start the Conversation →