Are You Too Comfortable? Am I?

I was thinking about how God wants us to grow. In some ways I think our "comfort" is at odds with what God wants for us sometimes... maybe even most of the time.

I think of Paul's comments about milk and solid food in Hebrews 5:13-15

13Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. 14But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.

Then there are Jesus' words about pruning in John 15:2

"while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes[a] so that it will be even more fruitful."

Here are a few related quotes I like on how trials, struggles, and “stretching the envelope” help us grow:

A saint’s life is in the hands of God as a bow and arrow in
the hands of an archer. God is aiming at something the
saint cannot see; he stretches and strains, and every now
and again the saint says, “I cannot stand any more.”
But God does not heed; He goes on stretching until
His purpose is in sight, then He lets fly.
We are here for God’s designs, not for our own.

Oswald Chambers

If we study the lives of great mean and women carefully and
unemotionally, we find that, inevitably, greatness was
developed, tested, and revealed through the darker periods
of their lives. One of the largest tributaries of the River of
Greatness is always the Stream of Adversity.

Cavett Roberts

Disappointments that come not by our own fault, they are the
trials or corrections of heaven; and it is our own fault if
they prove not to our advantage.

William Penn


The spiritual life cannot be made suburban. It is always frontier, and we who live in it must accept and even rejoice that it remains untamed.

Howard Macey