I was talking to a friend the other day about this idea of comfort. We both agreed that as a human race we most often seek out comfort above all other things.
I told him, I don’t care if I’m wealthy or I have a bunch of stuff or even if I’m successful, I just want to be comfortable in this life. Think about it, when talking world problems we almost always try to solve them by making the sufferers of such problems more confortable.
That plays itself out in our marriage too. Instead of confronting that extra $44 we shouldn’t have spent on the entertainment section of our budget for April, we let it slide. We plan vacations to cushy islands, not mission trips to war-strewn third world countries. We gravitate towards what’s easy, the path of least resistance.
Now I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with nice vacations or going to the movies at $22 a pop (actually there is something wrong with that, but it has nothing to do with me or you).
What I’m saying is that, when given the choice, Jesus sought out trial over free pass and pain over painless. Those things didn’t just come to him as if magically produced by life, He went after them. He saw the eternal gain in subjecting Himself to temporary physical and emotional decimation to become more like His father.
And we can barely fast for a day to catch a glimpse of this.