Sometimes God Wants You to Get Uncomfortable

She stood in front of the room as we were closing Bibles and shuffling papers. “Some of you might be feeling a little intimidated, a little afraid, maybe a little overwhelmed,” she said. “Some of you might feel like you’re in over your head, and maybe even doubting whether you can do this thing.”

I thought I knew what she was going to say after that. I assumed she’d tell us that it was okay; that it would get better, easier. That we’d find writing to be not as scary or as challenging as we’d anticipated.

But she didn’t say that.

What Evi said that evening in front of a class full of new writers surprised me. “It’s true,” she said. “Sometimes writing is hard, and sometimes it’s scary. And sometimes God wants us to get uncomfortable.”

I admire Evi for telling it to us straight that night. I think in her shoes I would have sugar-coated it. I might have told a room full of nervous, new writers, “No problem, don’t worries, you’ve got this thing.” But I don’t know if that would have been the whole truth.

The whole truth is that writing is hard. Just like faith is hard. But the times in which both writing and faith have been the hardest, the times in which I’ve had to step the farthest out of my comfort zone, are the times in which I’ve grown the most and grown closer to God in the process.

Like taking that first step toward belief after not believing for so long.

Or joining a small group Bible study when the thought of praying with strangers made me hyperventilate. 

Like standing in front of more than 500 people at church to share my faith testimony.

Or emailing the next query, pitching the next story. Exposing myself to the next rejection.

Or telling someone out loud that I was a Christian writer for the first time.

In all these hard moments I exposed myself. I allowed myself to be vulnerable. And I learned to trust, to rely not on myself, but on God.

The challenging truth about the Gospels is that God’s deepest desire isn’t for us to be comfortable. While I believe he loves me, and I believe he wants me to be happy, I also believe that he wants me to be uncomfortable, at least sometimes.  Because it’s in discomfort that I am much more likely to grow closer to him.

When was the last time God asked you to get uncomfortable? What happened?

With Emily's Imperfect Prose:

And Jennifer's God Bumps:

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