Creatures of Comfort

We Are Creatures of Comfort…        

It has been a long, cold, blustery, snowy, long, cold, long, cold, snowy winter. It was Thursday of last week and finally the snow was 90% melted away and glimmers of the hope of spring were shining in little corners of our neck of the woods. And then it started to snow, and snow, and snow, and snow.  11 inches of a disgusting white blanket of grossness and school was 2 hours late, then called off completely.  It was April 4^th.  Ugh.  What’s a girl to do?!  Last year I went off the deep end and decided to make a beach in my living room. I had to laugh when the Kirby Vacuum sales-dude (Sidenote off of an already tangented paragraph: I say “dude” because he really can be called neither a man nor a guy or anything of the like because he was all of maybe 17 years old trying to tell me that I should buy his $3000 vacuum. He might have only been 13 because when I offered him a peanut butter and jelly sandwich he was pretty much elated!)…  Back to the point here… I laughed when he said, “Wow, the people who lived here before you must have had a sandbox in the living room!”  “No, that was us, last winter!” is what I got to reply with.  This year, there was no beach living room, despite Isaiah’s best efforts to convince me.      

 

Anywho, just as quickly as those 11 inches of gross whiteness came, they left, by Sunday at noon, it was 95% gone again and the temps were reaching the mid 60’s.  Halleluia!  Praise the Lord God Almighty!  Could it be???  Could we be safe to put away *most* of our winter gear?  It’s an exciting time ‘round these parts when you get to do that folks! 

 

And so the Kruger family got home from church and the children were directed to get their play clothes and tennis shoes on and head outside on what was a glorious day!  To my surprise, the request by Jeremiah and I of our cherubs was met by groans and moans of not wanting to go outside.  What?!  Are you JOKING?!  We have been cooped up for what seems like 8,496 days and you want to STAY INSIDE?!  This train has been wildly derailed and I’m not quite sure of what to do.  Jeremiah replied with, “Ok, you can stay inside, but you guys all have to take naps. Outside or naps. Those are your two choices.” So begrudgingly they went outside. 

 

What, of course, followed were 3 children playing outside for hours and hours and hours and NOT wanting to come inside at the end of the day.  They rode bikes, played with friends, climbed trees, filled up the kiddie-pool to have a bike wash, laughed, yelled, ran and breathed in the FRESH AIR!  They were blissfully wiped out at the end of the day. 

 

So what in the world was going on when they said that they didn’t want to go outside and play? What was up with that?  I realized that we as humanity, so often get caught in what we think is comfortable.  We get caught in the habit or the cycle of doing something over and over and over and it can be a scary thing to pull ourselves out of it and do something different.  My kids had been stuck inside for months and it was like they didn’t know what they’d do with themselves outside.  Here was this GORGEOUS day outside, but the “comfort” of staying inside was pulling at them.  I’m sure that running through Jonah’s complete analytical mind were questions like, “Will I be warm enough?” “Will there be something to play with?” “Will there be someone to play with?” “What if I get bored?” “What if I can’t remember how to ride my bike or I can’t run as fast as I could last summer?”  Going back to what seems “comfortable” always pulls at us.  To step out and experience something better can be scary to some people.  Even when we KNOW that the new thing WILL be better, we can still tend to be hesitant and wary of it.  So weird we are… So weird.  

 

I realized that it’s like that with sin too.  We get caught in it.  Caught in the familiarity of it being around us.  Most of us know that the word “sin” doesn’t have a good connotation.  It’s not something that most of us strive for… at least I HOPE NOT!  But we still wade in its swamp, afraid to step out of it and experience the white sands, blue waters, and amazing sound of crashing waves in the ocean! 

 

We all struggle and get caught in sin.  We get caught in gossiping, we get caught in anger and tempers, we get caught in self-medicating with many different substances and vices, we get caught in comparison, we get caught in judgmental-ness, we get caught in lying (even those little white ones!), we get caught in foul-mouth-language, we get caught in unforgiveness, and we get caught in putting almost everything and everyone before God.  These things are so easy to step into and so. very. difficult. to. step. out. of.  UGH.

 

But just as my kids listened to Jeremiah and stepped outside in the beautiful sunshine, we too can listen to God’s direction, leading us to something that is better.  He says to us, “Go and enjoy the good life!” and we reply with a whiney, “Noooooo, I just want to sit here in my comfy little swamp. I’ve gotten used to the smell and I know the temperature of the water.” And he says back to us, “Ok, you can stay here in this junk and I promise you, you won’t like it, or you can go and enjoy the good life. You choose.”  I want to heed the example of my kids who listened to their dad yesterday, who went out and thoroughly enjoyed the good life!  And I’m telling you, it was goooood!  They were so busy playing and having fun that I didn’t even want to bother them with dinner, so I told them that if they were hungry they could run inside and grab something and go back out. They noshed on Cheetos and bananas and granola bars and strawberry applesauce and Easter egg nest cookies and juice boxes.  I’m thinking that to a kid- THAT is the good life!  Who am I kidding?  To ME that’s the good life!  And I’m choosing to trust the Lord when He gives me a new direction to go.  Just as Jeremiah and I wanted what was best for our children and we KNEW what was best for our children, the Lord wants what is best for us and He KNOWS what is best for us.  Thanks for havin’ my back Lord, you’re pretty rad.