In Luke 6:24 Jesus says, “…Woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort.” What is Jesus trying to tell us in this verse? Is He telling us that it is wrong to be rich? No, He is teaching us a very valuable lesson about life that applies to more than just rich people.
If you live in America you are considered rich. The majority of us live in a house or an apartment. We have running water, clothes, plenty of food and even electricity. Go to a third world country and you will find that the majority of the people do not have these benefits. Not only do we have these commodities—we also have televisions, computers, iPods and video games. We are what Jesus termed “rich.” We live the “good life.”
What Jesus is saying in this verse is be careful of living the “good life” and then missing out on the great life or Godly life. It is easy to settle for second best living the good life. Because everything comes so easily to us it is easy to slip into the COMFORT ZONE. And beware of the comfort zone (do do, do do, do do –Twilight Zone theme song) because it is a fatal trap the devil uses to destroy our calling.
There are many areas of comfort that we can fall into—whether it is staying in your warm, cozy bed rather than waking up thirty minutes early to read your Bible, or staying in isolation mode at school instead of talking to new people, or watching T.V. and playing on the computer rather than studying. If we are not careful these comfort zones will hold us back from greatness.
God is calling us to do “hard things” as young people. The world has low expectations for us. It says that we will never amount to anything good. We are just a bunch of slobs that can’t talk to people, that play video games all day and are shutdown from the rest of the world. “Just stay in your comfort zone. You’re too weak to work hard, you’re not disciplined enough to excel in school. You have a learning disability. You may get embarrassed if you step out. Don’t take the chance” the world tells us.
Many of us want to break free from this trap but there is a problem. There is an invisible fence of fear that is holding us back from breaking through our comfort zone—fear of weakness, discomfort, failure and embarrassment. This fence of fear we experience is similar to what an elephant experiences. Elephants are one of the strongest beasts on the planet. Certain countries have Elephant Festivals to celebrate the size, strength and mobility of elephants. At the end of the festival they have a man vs. elephant tug-a-war. Guess how many men go against the elephant? 100! Every time the elephant wins. It is so strong and powerful that the 100 men don’t stand a chance.
Elephants can whip around a hundred men as if they were nothing but are held captive by a small rope and wooden stake. The elephant’s back leg is simply tied to the stake and won’t move. Why is this? When the elephant is a baby men place a thick chain and shackle around their back, right leg. The young elephant tries with all of its might to break free but never succeeds. From this moment on the elephant is brainwashed into believing that a small rope is the same as the heavy chain and it will never break free. It tried before and failed. So why try again? We too have are being held back by a tiny, little fear. We have been trained by the world to stay right where we are at.
How are we going to break free? God tells us in 2 Timothy 1:7, “God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, love and self-discipline.” God has first given us a spirit of power: “We can do all things through Christ who gives us strength” (Philippians 4:13). His grace is sufficient in our weakness. We can and will break out of this fence of fear, of this comfort zone because God has given us the power.
Secondly, God has given us his love. If we truly love God we will be willing to sacrifice our sleep, our agenda, our comfort to be with him. If we love our friends, then we will realize that unless we do something they are dying and going to hell. Unless we step out of our comfort zone and reach out and encourage and love them they have little hope.
Finally, God has given us a spirit of self-discipline meaning that we have the ability to do something without someone else pushing us to do it.
Why must we live uncomfortably and do hard things? If everything came easy to us and there was no challenge to life we would never have a fight. If we never had a fight we would never develop our character. We would remain premature for the rest of our lives. We would be like the people in the movie WALL-E that lay on their hover beds all day, are overweight and have no muscle because they’ve grown up with no gravity and robots give them whatever they ask.
In Do Hard Things Alex and Brett Harris talk about a map in the British Museum of London that was made in 1525. On this map is certain parts of the coast of America that had not yet been discovered by the English. What is interesting about this map is the cartographer has written on these foreign coasts, “Here be giants, here be dragons, here be fiery scorpions!”
Can you imagine if explorers would have never gone to these areas because of these made up fears? It’s not the tiredness of getting up early, pushing yourself to your limit, rejection by friends—it’s the fear of these things. Never forget that the giants, dragons and fiery scorpions are only fears.
Do hard things!
Ryan Austin
Element Youth Leader
