I’m just awkward enough to feel uncomfortable multiple times a week. That’s just the truth. I don’t know how to not be awkward. I’m inside too much, I’d say… which actually is a choice sometimes to lessen the awkward encounters I guess, but that’s another story.

Comfort to me usually involves my king sized blanket, a nice pillow, and reading material – whether the Bible or any other book, fiction or nonfiction. What else makes me comfortable are the clothes I wear. I try to make my whole wardrobe comfortable whether it’s work clothes, non-work clothes, or church clothes. There’s overlap there, but all in all, mostly comfortable.

In life, we have some control on comfort. In the country we live in, modern as it is with technology and standard of living, we pretty much have to have air conditioning or that could be considered an emergency. Having gone through that already this summer, we realize how spoiled we are in 2022. Going to Texas in 100° weather was also not something I’d want to do again. It’s hard to get relief when it’s hot like that. It’s hard to be comfortable.

Just like in the heat, we tend to be uncomfortable when we’re put through trials, the fire you could call it. We’re uncomfortable.

…comfort is the only thing you cannot get by looking for it. If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end: if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth – only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin with and, in the end, despair.

C. S. Lewis – Mere Christianity

Looking for comfort probably won’t take you out of the uncomfortable, try as we might. In those cases, we’re just ignoring our problems.

Is ignoring our problems really comfort? Not really. We may be ignoring them, but they’re still there. They still pop up and bring back the discomfort.

Looking for truth will bring comfort because truth will come from God. Looking for comfort might be through lies and last a while, but comfort through a lie isn’t the truth and as Lewis says, will only bring despair.

“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”

Psalm 23:4

Admittedly, most of my discomfort has stemmed from not allowing God to help me through it. Do I always turn to God to comfort me while I’m uncomfortable? No. A lot of that’s in my head, I have a lot of time alone to think and I get lost, buried in my own thoughts instead of filling my head with His truths. When I do turn to God, I am comforted and empowered. I can get through this. When will I learn to do that on a regular basis?

“When the cares of my heart are many, your consolations cheer my soul.”

Psalm 94:19

God is always there to comfort His children.

Blessed be the God and Father or our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our afflictions, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.

2 Corinthians 1:3-5

We can be there to comfort our brothers and sisters.