Finding Comfort In Your Discomfort

experiencing the comfort of God

What do we do with the God who allows discomfort to linger?”

I know the language I have been given. Wait on the Lord. Be still. Trust. But that would require a gap, a space between discomfort and getting rid of discomfort, which my body doesn’t have time for.

Discomfort insists that I do, and do now.

My first instinct is not worship; I’m just being honest. When discomfort hits, my instant instinctual action is management. I start tightening invisible screws, running internal diagnostics, and reaching for whatever has worked (or let’s be honest again, not worked) in the past. If anxiety has any strategy, I deploy it. If control has a script, I follow it.

Discomfort doesn’t invite me to a sense of peace in His presence, or a pleasant waiting on the Lord; it demands clear and quick action. So, waiting on the Lord is not my immediate answer to the discomfort conundrum.

The Real Question

But, I am still left with what does one “do with Him” when he doesn’t take away the discomfort in a timely fashion? Maybe the best and most sobering answer is to stop trying to manage Him, and to let Him be God.

But you’re thinking, how can you let Him be what He already is?

Okay, fair enough, but let me put it another way. Discomfort seems to open up in me the hidden impulse not just to control the circumstance, but to control God’s timing, methods, and priorities. In other words, not to let Him be sovereign in my life, but to make me sovereign in my life.

When discomfort is present or even just predicted, my brain turns into a bird trapped inside a house, hurling itself against every wall, every plan, every person, every painkiller, desperate for a door that might lead to comfort.

By the time I even think about God, I’ve already taken control. Or tried to; attempting the hostile takeover that happens when my subconscious mind is fueled by the idea that if God were trustworthy, He would fix this.

So, in the moment, that thought doesn’t usually sound like such an accusation against my faith as it sounds here. In the moment, it sounds reasonable, responsible, even. Maybe that’s because it’s so urgent. I mean, someone needs to take charge, and since God doesn’t seem to be doing it fast enough, it’s up to me now.

That’s the exact moment discomfort stops being something I endure and starts becoming something I manage. Not because I’ve actually rejected God, though it might sound like it in retrospect, but the real problem is that I’ve reassigned His role to myself. It’s not even like I stop believing in Him; I just keep Him close enough to consult, but not close enough to command.

Just Calm Down

I think I’ve systematically trained myself to think that calm is a product of my control, and not my trust. That if I explain well enough, control the situation good enough, and perform flawlessly enough, then relief will follow. It’s all backwards, of course, but it still feels like the safest way to survive, and the quickest way to comfort.

I really think that somewhere along the way, I picked up the belief that discomfort is a failure, not just a feeling. Not just a condition to walk through with God, but a sign that something has gone wrong, and probably because I didn’t catch it early enough.

So I catch it, or at least I try to.

I don’t wait to be told. I manage before I’m asked. And that’s what makes this part so sneaky. Because it doesn’t feel like rebellion, it feels like wisdom. It feels like spiritual maturity, like I’m just being prepared. But it’s not that, it’s overfunctioning. It’s discomfort becoming the puppet master of discernment.

And I know this, because discomfort doesn’t order me to abide. It orders me to move out. To get to work preventing the worst-case scenario from happening on my watch.

I bet you’re wondering, how did we get into this mess? Good question. Let’s explore.

Did God Show Up?

I think that most of us are functionally formed to recognize God by what He does for us more than by who He is. Of course, He does everything for us, so that’s an easy pattern of thought. But it’s not the whole story.

Just think about the question behind the question: Did God show up?

What we really mean is, did something change?

This “thermometer” for the presence of God in our midst has trained us, over time, to experience God through outcome rather than presence:

He healed; therefore, we know He was present

He fixed; therefore, we know He cared

He provided; therefore, we know He heard

Those are all true in a limited sense, but they are mediated encounters; us encountering God through a mediator: the results, not directly encountering Him.

That means that when results stop coming, the encounter falls apart. And that’s why chronic discomfort feels like abandonment, and/or failure.

As I’ve been studying my own relationship with discomfort and the Divine, I’ve discovered some roots that run deep, and have been nourishing my false need for comfort for a very long time. Perhaps talking about them together will help us to change our current system of experiencing God as our comfort.

Testimony Culture

The Christian culture of testimony is wonderful! We all love testimonies. They inspire us, make us tear up, and help us understand one another better.

But, these stories all seem to follow a comfort arc:

I was broken
I prayed
God intervened
Everything changed for the better

And those stories are true, and inspiring, but incomplete.

How often have you heard a testimony that says:

I prayed.
Nothing changed.
God remained, and I did too.

You just don’t get asked to report the status quo of your pain and suffering to the congregation.

By only sharing the “comfort arc,” the church inadvertently has told those who are currently suffering that they are doing something wrong. Creating a “performative” spirituality makes people feel they can only speak once they have a “win” to report.

The result is that we subconsciously learn that God’s nearness is confirmed by resolution. And when resolution doesn’t come, faith feels unfaithful. And our response is either experienced as guilt or a sense of distance.

Answered-Prayer Emphasis

God answers prayers, there is no question of that, but when we teach ourselves to look for God through open doors or closed doors, in circumstances aligning, or things “working out,” we start to build a comfort worldview. And it’s not all wrong. God does move in ways to get us somewhere better than we are now, but this idea forms something else in us as well. It trains us to ask: What is God doing? Instead of Who is God being?

That means that when comfort fails, discernment fails with it.

Worship Language

Have you noticed that a lot of our modern worship songs talk a lot about things like rescue, breakthrough, victory, chains falling, and walls coming down? It’s like all we want to hear about is relief, winning, breaking through. And while there are biblical truths to this relationship between worship and comfort, we don’t tend to sing about endurance, waiting, living with unanswered prayer, or remaining without relief. It’s like worship has become our rehearsal of the comfort we hope is coming. And when relief doesn’t come, we assume our worship “isn’t working.”

I know many of us don’t hear our heart language in older hymns, so we don’t sing them. But upon close examination, it is easy to see that in them, the “work” of worship isn’t to change the circumstances but to tether the soul to something unchangeable while the circumstances remain uncomfortable.

Discipleship Framed As Problem-Solving

I’m afraid I have been guilty of working too much at problem-solving, and less at resting in His presence. I know I often pray for situations to change, and for peace to come back when they do. I pray for the discomfort to end and the comfort to come. And while I know He does all those things, if that’s all I’m talking about in prayer, I’m teaching myself to see God only in good circumstances. I’m teaching my nervous system to think of God as a means of regulation, instead of a Lord to encounter. Then, when the regulation doesn’t come, God feels absent. Big surprise!

Redeeming Discomfort

Chronic or even imagined discomfort forces us to ask: Is God still God to me even if He is not actively improving my situation? And is that enough?

If my answer is yes, then that’s the moment the relationship shifts from “God as Deliverer” to “God as, well, God,” God as enough. And that’s the moment I can say with the Job, “Though He slay me I will trust in Him.”

God is enough. He alone. With no comfort in sight. With no evidence of hope in the near future. With all the challenges we are challenged with, He is enough.

When we rest in His presence, when we see Him for who He is, when we love His very nature, Comfort is literally Who we are with. No matter the strain, the worry, the struggle, comfort, like joy, is inseparable from the presence of God. It’s like standing near a fire: you don’t have to “ask” the fire for heat; heat is inseparable from the fire itself.

Comfort, like joy, is located in God’s presence, not in changed circumstances. The psalm does not say when trouble ends, but where God is.

“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea...” (Psalm 46:1-2)

We have to recognize that the fact that Jesus sweated blood proves that the “comfort of presence” does not mean the “absence of stress.”

In Gethsemane, He prayed a “testimony culture” type prayer: “Take this cup from me“ (Mark 14:36), asking for relief.

But,
the relief was denied.
and,
The “cup” remained.

Jesus experienced the “status quo of pain.” The situation didn’t change.

The agony of the cross was still coming, but He was sustained within that agony. The agony of the cross upon which Jesus was separated from the Father’s presence (and therefore all comfort) was accepted by Jesus so that we would never have to be separated from His presence. Because He endured a “presence-less” suffering, we now have a “presence-filled” suffering.

Paracletos

In the New Testament, the Holy Spirit is called the Paracletos, the Comforter, or Advocate, words that assume someone standing beside you rather than rearranging the terrain in front of you. And if that is true, and it is, then we may have confused relief with comfort all along.

Relief from discomfort is the removal of the burden.
Comfort is the strengthening of the person carrying it.

While God doesn’t always provide relief, He always provides Himself, and because He is the “God of all comfort” (2 Corinthians 1:3), His presence is synonymous with that comfort.

This echoes the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who famously said: “God can deliver us... but even if he does not, we will not serve your gods.” Their comfort was in their allegiance to Him, not their safety.

If I love His nature (who He is) rather than His hand (what He gives), then my worship becomes “bulletproof.”

He Has To Be Lord First

The Bible celebrates God as Deliverer, but after establishing Him as Lord. My problem isn’t expecting God to act; it’s needing a certain action in order to glory in His presence.

When discomfort clings to me, I’m forced to recognize that God is present before I see that He resolves my discomfort.

We are taught to recognize God by what He does for us, but lingering discomfort teaches us to recognize Him by who He is. So the question remains, what will you do with a God who allows discomfort to linger?

Let me leave you with these words from the old hymn, “Whate’er My God Ordains Is Right” by Samuel Rodigast.

“Whate’er my God ordains is right:

Though now this cup, in drinking,

May bitter seem to my faint heart,

I take it, all unshrinking.

My God is true; each morn anew

Sweet comfort sends, He shall my wants attend;

Therefore, I’ll allow Him to guide me.”

Where in your life right now are you waiting for a ‘breakthrough’ that might actually be an invitation to ‘abide’ instead?

What outcome are you quietly using as proof that God is with you? And if that outcome never materializes, what would that do to your trust?

I would love your thoughts on these ideas as I’m applying this balm of comfort to my own discomfort.

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