God uses uncomfortable situations for good in our lives.   #theloriclineshow   Interested in learning more about becoming a devoted follower of Christ? Go to follow.lifeword.org!   ~~~   Wherever you are, on this hot day in July, are you comfortable? I hope you’re not! Yep, you heard me right. I hope you are uncomfortable! If comfort breeds complacency then being uncomfortable is a catalyst for movement, growth and change. Do you believe that’s true? I’ve been thinking a lot lately about being uncomfortable. Maybe that’s because we’ve had excessive heat warnings during these hot and very humid July days. You walk outside and it’s like an oven. We want the comforts of air conditioning, sweet tea and watermelon. Those are some of the comforts I want! They give relief on a hot summer day. But even while in the comfort of my air conditioned home, my middle aged body decides to have its own excessive heat wave. Yep, once again, I’m uncomfortable. I can think back on seasons of my life that I pushed myself to step out of my comfort zone or maybe a time someone else pushed me out, and every single time, there was growth. I may not have liked it at the moment, but those seasons moved me to the next. God didn’t call us to be comfortable. Yes as a follower of Jesus, John 10:10 tells us we can have an abundant life and that life IS full of joy and peace, but that doesn’t mean we’re comfortable. Jesus said, in Matthew 16:24, “deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me”. When was the last time you denied yourself? We want what we want when we want it and how we want it. Jesus says, to follow me, you choose a different path. There is purpose in our pain. There is growth in our groanings and through the refining fire of denying self and walking through difficult, uncomfortable seasons, we are molded and made to be more like Christ. There are many throughout scripture who walked through uncomfortable seasons. As we make our way through the rest of this hot and uncomfortable month of July, I’m going to highlight some of those men and women God used through their discomfort. Let’s start in the beginning. Genesis 3:16-19 To the woman he said, “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.” In this very pivotal moment in history, the perfection of what was created, was cursed. The comfort, provision and fellowship in the garden was replaced with thorns and thistles. Sorrow, pain, relational discord, sweat and death became the reality. Since that day we have been striving and doing everything humanly possible to get comfortable once again. Romans 8:22 tells us creation now groans, awaiting redemption. The word for groan in the Greek means to sigh or groan because of an undesirable circumstance. Friends, we are IN an undesirable circumstance. All creation groans because we can’t get comfortable in this broken and sin filled world. We watch and long for the return of Christ, our blessed hope. Until that day, all the discomfort of this world, and the pains we feel, God uses for our good and His glory, and through it all, we are made more like Christ. That’s the truth. So the next time you're uncomfortable, don’t be so quick to run to what is comfortable, ask God to show you what deeper thing He may be doing through it, IN your life. I’m Lori Cline.