Willing to Be Uncomfortable

Good morning. Today we are in Isaiah 13, and it's not a very easy chapter to sit with and read.

As I was preparing, I spent time researching and understanding why all of a sudden we've moved from Assyria to now prophecy about Babylon, and the geopolitical craziness that was going on at that time.

And I wanted to go into the New Testament and temper it with things that I find are softer—grace and mercy and love.

But Isaiah 13 does not give that cushion.

We have verses like verse 3. It says:

"I have commanded My consecrated ones, I have also called for My warriors who boast in My eminence, to execute My anger."

And verse 9:

"Behold, the day of the Lord is coming, cruel, with fury and burning anger, to make the land a desolation; and He will exterminate its sinners from it."

And then in verse 11 we have:

"So I will punish the world for its evil and the wicked for their wrongdoing. I will also put an end to the audacity of the proud and humiliate the arrogance of the tyrants."

And then as you go, you'll find verse 16 that has equally hard things.

And the chapter just doesn't stop.

As I was contemplating where to go with this, we went out and we were having a meal at a restaurant.

And you know sometimes when you're in a restaurant, you can sometimes hear the conversations going on around you, even if you're trying really hard not to.

And this particular restaurant carried a certain voice pretty well, and the table was a few tables away.

I was not trying to be nosy.

And it was interesting because I couldn't hear all of the conversation, but I heard this part really clearly, and I was like—

And they were talking about the Bible.

And it was a young man and an older married couple.

And the young man was like, "Yeah, I know that God's Word says that they're supposed to wait until marriage for sex, but some people just aren't made that way, and some just aren't going to wait."

And he—he went on to defend that, yes, he believes that waiting for sex is the right thing to do, but he kept adding this—the only word I could come up with was padding—around that verse for couples who have chosen not to wait.

And as I was sitting there contemplating this, the thing that came to me:

Why are we willing to be uncomfortable with Scripture?

Because I—for me, discomfort is where I grow.

And I think too often—no, I run away from discomfort.

If I am reading a news story that makes me uncomfortable, I either want to just turn it off or judge, or I'm unwilling to sit with uncomfortableness.

And yet this world is filled with uncomfortable things, and very few of them have very clear-cut yes-no things.

But we want them to fit neatly into boxes.

We want them to fit into an either/or instead of an and, because it's uncomfortable to sit with the bad, the evil, with the sin.

And sometimes it's easy to just declare judgment.

And as I was thinking about that, I feel like when it comes to Scripture, there's sort of—there should be three camps, but there really seems to be two.

One is we make God's Word harsher.

We add rules around it to equal what we think it means.

And it's something that the Pharisees did.

You know, they had all of these added things to make them more pious and seem more godly and righteous, and then they looked down at anyone who didn't live the way they felt they should live, at least according to all of these rules and add-ons that they had added.

We certainly do that today.

And we allow our convictions to then be something that we have to put on other people, when our convictions are between us and God, and not us and God and then the rest of the world.

And I think the other way that we tend to go is we tend to soften it, like this young man was around the waiting-until-marriage-for-sex conversation.

I felt like he was running around finding all of these couch cushions and pillows and padding it around God's command to make it feel less—to soften it, to come along and try to round off the slightly sharper edges of it.

And I think the third camp is one that's sort of in the middle, where it holds God's truth unabashedly as true, but we don't add to it.

But then we're not also making it feel more comfortable.

Instead, we're allowing it to be uncomfortable and then allowing the Holy Spirit to work in our life and in our hearts and in our minds.

Because that's just the way God is, and it's how He functions and how He works.

He doesn't get us to let go of a sin because it's comfortable.

Eventually, it has to become uncomfortable enough that we have to decide if we're going to just make it comfortable and say, "Nope, this is how I live. This is what I wanna do," and turn our backs on God, or if we allow that uncomfortableness to step in and let the Holy Spirit come in and nudge things around in our hearts and in our minds to come into alignment with Him.

And I just really think that that's just something we all have to do.

I know it's something I have to do every day.

Am I walking away from the Scripture because it's uncomfortable?

Am I walking away from a new situation because it's uncomfortable?

Or am I willing to live long enough in that uncomfortable place and allow the Holy Spirit to work, to learn a new thing, to come into alignment with God?

So what are you uncomfortable with that maybe God is asking you to sit there with?

What stood out to you from Isaiah 13?

Oh, dear Heavenly Father, Lord, I thank You.

Thank You for nudging me to stay in the uncomfortable place of not having a reflection yet and trusting that You had something more to reveal, to trust that it would show up in Your perfect timing, even if it wasn't the timing I was hoping for.

Lord, may I allow Your areas that create discomfort become the areas I allow You to step in and do work.

May I not get proud and stiff-necked and stubborn.

Oh, that I would surrender to You, Lord.

Thank You for those uncomfortable spots.

But I ask that You'd be with us as we go out and do what You have called us to do, that we can learn to speak truth in love to the people that You have placed in our world of influence.

That we would not add to Your Word, but also that we would not soften it to make it feel more palatable.

Help us to live in the realm of discomfort.

Help us be present with those around us.

I pray that we will honor You in all that we do.

Oh Lord, it is in the precious name of Jesus I pray. Amen.

Thank you for joining me today as we wander through God's Word with wonder.