It’s a question worth asking often:
Is the pursuit of comfort keeping you from living the life God created you to live?
We often talk about distractions like phones, TV, YouTube, or social media. These are easy to identify and even easier to justify. But I believe the enemy is using something even more subtle to derail men from their purpose—comfort.
If the enemy can’t fully destroy you or get you to turn your back on God, he’ll use a more strategic tactic—distraction. He’ll shift your focus from God’s mission to worldly things. He doesn’t need to corrupt you—he just needs to keep you distracted.
And in the United States, one of the easiest ways to do that is through comfort.
Comfort isn’t evil in itself. But when it becomes your goal, it can pull you into a passive, apathetic life that lacks faith, boldness, and purpose.
Here are three signs that comfort might be distracting you right now:
Think about the seasons when you felt closest to God. Were they easy seasons? Or were they the moments you were desperate for Him to come through?
It’s often in the hard times—when we’re stretched, uncertain, or hurting—that we press into God the most. Comfort can dull our desperation, and when desperation disappears, so does deep dependence on the Lord.
Recently, I was in Guatemala, visiting families living in extreme poverty. One elderly couple broke down in tears as we brought food—they had prayed all morning for God to provide. When we showed up, they praised Him, not us. They were living in total dependence on God, and their faith was alive.
Are you living in such a way that you need God to come through?
Or has your life become so comfortable that you’ve stopped relying on Him?
Mark Batterson once asked, “Do you have a dream that is destined to fail without divine intervention?”
If your goals don’t require God, they might be too small.
If your life is manageable, safe, and predictable, you may be missing the life of impact God designed you to live.
Think about Moses. He was coasting in the wilderness, avoiding risk and responsibility, until God called him out of comfort and into purpose. If Moses had stayed in the wilderness, we wouldn’t be talking about him today. No plagues, no Red Sea, no deliverance.
Comfort is safe. But comfort never changes the world.
When you step into God-sized dreams, He gets the glory—and you get to see Him move in ways you never imagined.
Here’s a tough truth:
“Everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” – 2 Timothy 3:12
If you’re not facing any pushback for your faith, it’s worth asking: Am I playing it too safe?
Sharing the gospel, standing up for truth, living boldly—it often puts us in uncomfortable, even unpopular, positions. And many times, we avoid it to protect our image, our relationships, or our comfort.
I’ve done it. I’ve kept quiet when I should’ve spoken up. I’ve chosen the easier path when God was calling me to courage.
But Scripture reminds us that persecution is part of the package. It’s not failure. It’s confirmation.
If you’re catching heat for your faith, it might mean you’re doing something right.
Comfort can lull you to sleep while your calling waits on the battlefield.
Don’t let a desire for ease rob you of the life God has for you. Step into the hard things. Chase the God-sized dreams. Share your faith even if it’s uncomfortable. Trust God deeply and daily.
Because a life of comfort may be easy—but it’s rarely significant.
God created you for more than ease. He created you to live with courage, purpose, and passion.
Let’s be men who live for God’s purposes—not our own comfort.
It’s time to wake up, get back in the fight, and live intentionally.
If this challenged you, share it with another man who might need the same reminder. And take time this week to ask God where comfort might be distracting you from what matters most.
Let’s stop living to arrive safely at death—and start living boldly for the glory of God.
Is the pursuit of comfort causing you to be distracted from what truly matters the most in your life?
This is a question that is worth asking yourself often. It is so easy to let the pursuit of comfort creep into your life if you are not intentional about it.
There are many subtle ways that the enemy is distracting men from what is the most important - living for God and his purposes.
I’m sure you recognize some of the tangible things that are distracting you from living for what matters the most - things like your phone, TV, social media, youtube, video games…whatever it is for you, those things are usually pretty easy to identify as distractions in your life. It doesn’t mean we are always good at dealing with those, but they are usually easier to spot.
I think the enemy is using some other things in a more subtle way that might be distracting you from truly going after everything God has for you in your life.
And one of those ways is…comfort.
I believe that comfort is the silent killer of a man’s purpose.
See if the enemy can’t fully destroy you and get you to fully forsake God, then he will revert to other tactics…tactics where he wants to get your eyes focused on everything else in this world that you aren’t focused on God.
If he can make comfort the goal of your life, then you will lose sight of living on mission for God. If he can get you consumed with accumulating possessions where you forget about God, then he is winning.
He doesn’t always have to fully corrupt you to make you ineffective. He just has to get your focus somewhere else.
And one of things that can so easily steal your focus, especially in the United States, is comfort.
Today, I want to give you 3 different signs that comfort may be a distraction in your life right now. This is not an exclusive list so I encourage you to take a thorough look at your life to see where an overreliance and pursuit of comfort might be taking away your focus, but these 4 should provide a good starting point.
They have really challenged me and opened my eyes to how I was letting comfort drive so much of my life and keep me from truly stepping up and being the man God has made me to be.
The first sign that you might be letting comfort drive your life or distract you from what matters most is that you are feeling apathetic in your relationship with the Lord.
I want you to think for a minute about the times that you have felt the closest to God in your life. Think about when you were the most dependent on him…the most reliant on him…when he was speaking to you and teaching you the most
If you think about defining moments in your relationship with the Lord, almost always, they were times where you were forced out of your comfort zone and you had to really press in and rely on the Lord.
That has been the truth in my life and is almost always the case when I ask men to go through this exercise. When I am going through something difficult, I am forced to press in and trust in the Lord.
When something around me is happening that I have no control over, I am forced to go to the Lord.
Most likely, you have come to know and rely on the Lord through something difficult in your life.
When everything is easy and comfortable, its very tempting to start coasting and not rely and trust in the Lord as much.
If you are feeling apathetic right now. If you feel like your relationship with God is on autopilot, then you might be living too comfortably.
I do want to clarify right now, there is a difference between seasons of rest, and the pursuit of comfort. You don’t have to always go force your way into uncomfortable situations to know the Lord, you can very much learn to rest and trust in him in good seasons, but my hypothesis is that if you have been stuck in a season of apathy or passivity for far too long, you don’t have anything in your life that you are truly relying on the Lord for. That you are looking to material things are comforts in your life to satisfy more than the Lord.
I was just in Guatemala earlier this year and we went on some house visits where we were bringing food and supplies to families in need in the community. And I’ll never forget the first house that we visited.
It was an elderly couple that was living in a tiny home with just some branches as walls and a flimsy sheet of metal as the roof.
When we brought them the food and supplies, they immediately broke down in tears and started thanking and praising God. They told us that they were praying all morning for food. They didn’t have anything to eat that day and prayed that God would provide. And so when we showed up with the food, it wasn’t anything special we did, but rather a testimony to God answering their prayers.
These people HAD to rely on God. They had to pray with fervor. They had to trust him with everything they had. And they had to immediately give praise and thanks to God because only he could’ve provided that way.
Is there anything in your life right now where you truly need God to come through? We are so privileged in the United States to have most of our basic needs provided for, that it can be really easy to not truly need God to come through on a daily basis.
Oftentimes, that comfort leads to apathy. It can cause us to trust in ourselves more than God. It can cause us to focus on our constant fulfillment than to live for God and his purposes. Sometimes God’s plans for our lives don’t always involve constant comfort, and so it is easier to not pursue them.
That leads into sign number 2 that comfort is distracting you right now - Number 2 is that you don’t have any sort of dream or mission that requires God’s help.
Mark Batterson often poses the question - do you have a dream that is destined to fail without divine intervention?
Are you pursuing anything right now where you need God’s help? If not, you might be leaving some things on the table.
I think of the story of Moses. He was coasting out in the wilderness before God showed up to him in the burning bush. He was probably living a pretty comfortable life. He wasn’t facing any criticism out there, he didn’t have to face anything from his past. He didn’t have to take any risks.
But then God showed up to him in the burning bush and called him to go back to Egypt and lead the Hebrews out of bondage and into freedom.
From that moment on, he absolutely needed God every step of the way. There was no way he was going to be able to pull off that job without divine intervention.
He was forced out of comfort, but he was forced into significance. The wilderness was safe, but it wasn’t meaningful. The wilderness was comfortable, but it wasn’t going to change the world.
If he stayed there, we wouldn’t be talking about him. We would not have the stories of God sending the plagues to Egypt, guiding them with a pillar of fire, or parting the Red Sea. Some of the most epic miracles and stories of God’s greatness in all of Scripture came on the other side of Moses’s comfort zone.
They came because he was pursuing a mission of God that was destined to fail unless God showed up. A comfortable life is often not a very significant life.
If you don’t have a dream where you need God’s help, the dream might be too small.
If you are going after something all on your own strength and where you can get all the credit if it happens, the dream might not be big enough. It might not be God-inspired.
God loves big dreams because it gives him the opportunity to show up and show off. It gives him the opportunity to get the glory. It gives others an opportunity to see God at work.
Big dreams, big challenges…oftentimes force you to your knees. It will force you to depend on God. It will force you to rely on him for strength. It will cause you to trust him like never before because it is not going to happen unless he shows up.
I believe God has created you for something great like this! If there isn’t anything in your life forcing you to rely and trust in God, it might be time to start dreaming again! It might be time to think about stepping out of your comfort zone and living in boldness.
The next sign is one that just smacked me in the face recently. God really brought conviction in my life in this area. The third sign that you might be allowing comfort to distract you from God and his purposes is that you aren’t ever facing any sort of persecution or criticism for being a follower of God.
It is so easy to want to avoid criticism at all costs that we run to comfort instead of being obedient to the Lord.
Most of the time, we avoid sharing the gospel because it takes us out of our comfort zones. It puts you in vulnerable situations where you might get criticized or you might not know the answers. The fear of those things happening will keep you in the comfort bubble of your home or your church instead of being obedient in sharing the gospel.
I am raising my hand right now. This has been me so many times. I have often been so fearful of receiving criticism or not being liked, that I haven’t stepped out to boldly proclaim the name of Jesus.
I was reading in 2 Timothy 3 the other day and in verse 12 it just straight up says, “In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.”
Jesus also says this in John 15. He says, “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also.
If you are a Christ follower, there will be times where you will face criticism for it. Or you will be in rooms where you are made fun of or misunderstood.
If you are avoiding criticism for being a follower of Christ at all costs, then it might be time to reconsider how you are viewing it. Those scriptures just guaranteed that you will face some persecution because of being a Christ follower. It is going to happen so you might as well prepare for it and embrace it.
I believe that criticism and persecution are signs that you are actually living bold for God instead of for comfort. You need to shift your mindset. When it happens, be excited and encouraged because it means you are actually being an obedient follower of Jesus.
If you aren’t ever in situations where you are receiving any negative feedback for being a follower of Jesus, then you might need to take a step out of your comfort zone and live on mission for the Lord.
It’s time to redefine what success looks like. It’s not the avoidance of criticism. Anyone who has ever done something significant for the Lord has faced persecution or had to deal with criticism. It doesn’t mean you’re a failure or doing something wrong, it means you’re actually living with courage and living for the Lord instead of yourself.
Paul learned to delight in persecution because it meant he was on the right track. He said he counted it an honor to suffer for the Lord.
When you view criticism as a sign that you are actually living boldly for the Lord, it becomes way easier to embrace.
It’s time to recognize that comfort can become a distraction for living for God and his purposes if you are not living intentionally. The enemy will try to use it to keep you from being bold. He wants to use it keep you living a apathetic and complacent life. He wants to keep you from pursuing your God-inspired dreams and passions. He will try to convince you that playing it safe is the safest way to go. But playing it safe never leads to a fulfilling life.
Go after God with everything you have. Chase down your God-inspired dreams. Don’t live as if the purpose of life was to arrive safely at death. Live for something that is going to require divine intervention.
Living for Jesus, even if it takes you out of your comfort zone, is the best path for your life. There is nothing more exciting than following the will of God. There is nothing more amazing then seeing him show up in ways you could’ve never imagined.
It would be so sad to get to the end of my life and have missed opportunity after opportunity for God to show up and show off his power and to work powerfully in my life because I was only fixated on comfort.
Comfort lulls men to sleep while their calling waits on the battlefield. Get back on the battlefield. Take ground back from the enemy.
You were made to do something great because God made you and he doesn’t make mistakes. Let’s be men that live for his purposes and not our own comfort.
I hope today was helpful! I would encourage you to take some time with the Lord this week and ask him to reveal areas of your life where you are allowing comfort to distract you from what truly matters.
Please share this with someone if you think it would be beneficial for them. Thank you for joining me. I believe in you! Go live a life you are proud of by living intentionally.
