Finding comfort in God

By Mia Pohlman

Recently I've become mysteriously allergic to my couch: When I sit on it, I itch. The same was true, for a brief moment, of my bed and carpet. I thought the problem might be dust mites, so I mite-proofed and had everything steam cleaned. This worked for my carpet and bed, but was to no avail with my couch.

In the intermittent period of cleaning and wondering what was causing the reaction, I was crabby. My bed and couch are sacred places to me; they are where I seek God, rest and enjoy doing homework. With the advent of itching, I had nowhere comfortable to sit in my own apartment; I was relegated to hard kitchen table chairs and standing. I didn't feel at peace in a place I'd formerly regarded as a sanctuary.

This all has me thinking about where I seek and find my comfort. True, there are much worse things that could happen, and in the grand scheme of world events, not being able to sit on a couch because of itching registers on the scale somewhere around mildly frustrating and inconveniencing. But still. It is a simple pleasure I previously took for granted, that I assumed was my right.

Comfort, I'm realizing, is a luxury -- not a necessity -- and is a gift to be enjoyed when it's given. When it's taken away, it's a chance to press more deeply into God, the only one who is our lasting comfort.

Shane Claiborne, a leader of New Monasticism and a founder of The Simple Way intentional community, said in an interview with "On Being" producer Krista Tippett, "I'm convinced that if the Christian church loses this generation, it will be not because we didn't entertain them, but because we didn't dare them with the truth of the world. It won't be because we'd made the gospel too hard, but because we made it too easy, and we just played games with kids and didn't actually challenge them to think about how they live."

This sentiment resonates deeply within me because of the faith it places in my generation and the generation younger than me. Entertainment is not what we're looking for -- the world already offers enough of that. We are looking for deep purpose, yearning for encounters with God that lead us into the deep. We are hungering for a community with whom to live like the first members of the church, people who will support and push us to live out the challenge of Jesus' words in the gospel, especially in regard to Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. Myself and many young people I know are wanting to be led past the selfishness of capitalism to be the love of Christ that changes not only our own lives, but also the lives of others, as well as the systems we are a part of. We take seriously our call to be Christ's presence in the world.

In my apartment, I've worked intentionally to create a quiet, blank space to live simply in. I'm being shown, though, there is usually room for further simplification. What do I rely on for comfort that isn't God, and how can I rest more fully and deeply in the only one who can satisfy me completely?