Comfort Kills

Being Comfortable Can Kill Us

Too much comfort is dangerous. Literally.

Researchers at the University of California at Berkeley did an experiment some time ago that involved introducing an amoeba into a perfectly stress-free environment: ideal temperature, optimal concentration of moisture, constant food supply. The amoeba had an environment to which it had to make no adjustment whatsoever.

So you would guess this was one happy little amoeba. Whatever it is that gives amoebas ulcers and high blood pressure was gone.

Yet, oddly enough, it died.

Apparently there is something about all living creatures, even amoebas, that demands challenge. We require change, adaptation, and challenge the way we require food and air. Comfort alone will kill us.

(Study source: Chris Peterson, "Optimism and By-pass Surgery," in Learned Helplessness: A Theory for the Age of Personal Control [New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1993].)

Citation: John Ortberg, If You Want to Walk on Water, You've Got to Get Out of the Boat (Zondervan Publishing House, 2001), p. 47; submitted by Clark Cothern, Tecumseh, MI.

.... Comfort can kill. Our comfort as Big Creek Church can kill. Not physically of course, but spiritually. We need to be a church that boldly takes steps of faith. We need to live boldly, trust boldly, and move forward boldly. For instance, I believe that if we stay in our current location at Windward Parkway, it will stunt our growth and keep us on the margins of our community. But it's comfortable where we are at! Yes it is, I agree! What a great facility God has provided. What a tremendous blessing it has been. We have been making it our home for just over a year and it feels familiar, it's cozy, it's comfortable. But it is just at this time of comfort, that God is calling us to move elsewhere. Move to a place that puts us in the center of a community. Putting us in a place that allows us to be a shining city on a hill bringing the love of Christ to a community in desperate need of Him. To make this move is going to make us very uncomfortable. It is going to cost us, and I don't just mean financially. It is going to cost us to trust Him in ways we've perhaps never trusted Him. It is going to cost us time. It is going to cost us energy. It will demand from each of us sacrifice, faith and perseverance. It will require us to lean on Him and walk in the power of the Spirit. Comfort kills. God is calling us to step out of our comfort zone and listen to Him as we move forward in faith. - this brings real life!