What is the point of life? Is the point of your entire existence to accumulate stuff and make yourself as comfortable as possible? Really, at the end of your life, will you look back and say, “Wow, I sure felt comfortable.”

How much of life are you sitting it out on all in an effort to protect your comfort and safety? You sit in your little bubble, doing the same exact things you’ve always done, only seeking that which is guaranteed to be safe, going after the low hanging fruit of life that is easy to grab, then wondering why you feel an empty ache within you that desires more.

Girl, you weren’t designed for comfort and safety. Your bones heal. Your hair grows back. Your heart skips a beat, then starts back up. Your entire being was made for risk and change, overcoming and rising above. It’s who God decided you are, and how he decided your life would be. Risk takers. Change makers. Dreamers and doers. Chain breakers. Water walkers. Impossible things made possible because of the space God designed within you to hold his Spirit.

Then here comes the enemy. He can’t defeat you because of the Spirit that is within you. He can’t lessen your power. So, here’s what he does … he tries to make you forget your power.

Do you realize how the Devil makes you forget your God given power? One way is, he makes you comfortable!

As you become comfortable in life, you become soft. You experience a little ease, then you crave more ease. And here in this place of comfort and ease where threats seem to be held back, the real threat is happening within. Within, you are atrophying.

Atrophy: The wasting away of a body as a result of not being used.

You have muscle. If you stop using that muscle, it will atrophy and eventually get to the point of no longer being usable. You have strength, you have courage, you have willpower. But Honey, if you don’t use it, you lose it. And you better believe your enemy knows that!

Let me tell you what the enemy did to me. He offered me the promise of a guaranteed paycheck, while the prompting of a greater purpose wasted away within me. He offered a big beautiful home with a maid, while my adventurous spirit quietly died in the corner. He offered comfort on my couch, while my confidence was smothered by my lazy weight gain. He offered buy it and have it now, while I dug deeper ruts of debt that would hold me back from the freedom I desired.

The real me, the woman God created me to be, was at a total state of atrophy. I was wasting away with a big paycheck, a big house, a comfortable life, and all the stuff a girl could ever hope for.

Understand, this is why you can sometimes arrive to the destination in life you were working so hard for, only to feel empty inside. This is why everything can look so darn good on the outside, while you’re wasting away on the inside. You weren’t designed for a comfortable, easy, safe, plannable life. You’re trying to plan it all out, and Sis, that’s simply not the way it works! Your plans are sucking the life out of you! Your pursuit of safety is creating misery in the process.

God created those bones of yours to heal because he knew they would get broken along the way. Just because something can get broken doesn’t mean you put it on a shelf and never use it. Your life is here for living, and if it gets a little messed up, you have a Creator who is also a Healer, a Redeemer, and a Restorer. Go ahead and take a risk, make a change, step out in faith. Your hair will grow back!

Where are the stories in the Bible of people who played it safe? People who didn’t take any risks. People who chose comfort over a calling. There aren’t many, because the truth is it’s the ones out there living and taking risks that are written about! It’s the ones showing up and doing things that we read about.

We read about Moses, we read about Peter, we read about Daniel, we read about David. Their stories live on. We know their names!

But there is a story of an unnamed man in the Bible. A man who missed his opportunity. You need to know about him. In Matthew 19, there was a rich young man who encountered Jesus, and Jesus told him in verse 21, ““If you want to be perfect, go and sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
The next verse says, “When the young man heard this, he went away sad, for he had many possessions.”

And that was the end of his story. We never hear about him again.

Do you realize Jesus was giving this man an invitation to be his disciple? It was the same invitation he gave to all the others, “Come, follow me.” Because they were willing to leave everything they had, they experienced life with Jesus like no one else. They not only saw the miracles, they were part of the miracles. They were vessels used to write the words we still read today! But this young man just couldn’t accept the invitation and went away sad. Why? Because he had so much.

Let me tell you something, the enemy doesn’t just come to take from you, he also comes to give you so much that you miss the entire point! If taking it all away will get you stuck in a dark pit of depression, then he takes. But if giving you comfort and ease will get you stuck in the busyness of life while refusing the invitation to the purposes of God, then game on, he gives!

He gives you a comfortable job where you completely lose your identity.
He gives you the money that makes you greedy to only focus on getting more.
He gives you so much to take care of that you miss God’s sweetest opportunities.

And we are tricked with ease. We are tricked with comfort. We are tricked with safety. We are tricked with more.

But honey, “more” from the pits of Hell cannot possibly compare to the “more” from the heavenly realms!

Yes, the devil has more for you. More to distract you. More to overwhelm you. More to make you settle in to a little existence where life has become predictable and comfortable. All for the purposes of making you miss out on Jesus’ invitation to life.

Jesus says, “Come, follow me.” Well, girl, what’s holding you back?

What could life be without those ties? FREEING!
What could life be without those comforts? UNCOMFORTABLE …. And soooooo much bigger.

Jesus said in John 10:10 “I came that you might have life, and have it to the full.”

Life with Jesus is fulfilling. It is not easy. It is not comfortable. It is not predictable. It’s more like a wild ride where you are holding on tight with whiplash. But dang, is it fulfilling.

There’s no atrophy in a life with Jesus. There’s risk and chance and change. There’s uncertainty and challenges and a few broken bones that are promised to heal along the way. And there’s a fullness to life like you’ve never experienced in that bubble you’ve been trying to find and hide in.

If you’ve been missing the excitement in life, could it be because you’ve opted for safety over fully following Jesus? That rich young man turned away from Jesus and went back to his life of comfort and stuff. He had no idea what he was missing out on. He missed out on water walking lessons. He missed out on healings, and miracles, and a calling that would radically change the trajectory of his life.

You don’t want to miss out on this, Sis.

Is God prompting you to let go of something to pursue him more? Is he stirring a desire within you that will require a change? Is he extending an invitation to you right now for something more, but it will require you to make space first?

Remember the WWJD bracelets we used to wear? What Would Jesus Do? Jesus took risks. Jesus sought his calling over his comfort. Jesus chose eternal over easy. That’s what Jesus did. Now, what will you do?

When you’re old and dying, don’t you want to look back and say “Wow, I’m glad I went for it”, instead of “Wow, I’m glad I was so dang comfortable.”

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