“Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth, I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.  For I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter in law against her mother in law- your enemies will be the members of your own household.” 

Matthew 10:34-36

The above verses can be hard to understand.  “But I thought Jesus came to bring peace on earth, peace to the world and everyone in it?”  What Jesus is saying can be uncomfortable, but you start to understand this truth as you live according to the Bible, not the world.  Think about it for a moment.  If you’ve accepted Christ as your Savior, you’ve likely experienced disagreement with your choice to follow Jesus.  You’ve likely experienced some sort of pushback at the Christian lifestyle or the way we are called to live.  This is division and this is the sword that Jesus is speaking about.  While yes, Jesus brings peace and gives us peace, choosing Jesus as your Savior will not necessarily bring peace between you and your brother.  Choosing Jesus means that we will receive a “peace that surpasses all understanding”, but it doesn’t mean that we will have peace in all our relationships.  Choosing Jesus means that we will likely see division in our family and friends in living for eternity versus the world. What is important to remember is that just because division happens, just because disagreements occur, doesn’t mean we should stop speaking about Jesus.  Just because you take the step to share your faith with a family member and the outcome didn’t turn out great, doesn’t mean you made a mistake in sharing.  We, as Christians, as disciples of Jesus have to be okay with an unexpected outcome.  Regardless of the discomfort that comes with it, we have to be okay with our boldness resulting in no drastic conversion on the spot.  It’s still worth it. 

In this day and age, we like immediate results.  We are so used to immediate gratification, whether that’s through online shopping or social media scrolling, we can relieve our boredom and needs quickly with a click of a button.  This is not how God works.  We often lift up prayers to God with hopes that he’ll hear our prayers and answer them, but God is not a God of immediate gratification.  He’s not going to satisfy our every need every time we have it, he knows better than to give us exactly what we want.  We see the small teddy bear and he sees the full grown teddy bear… but that takes patience and trust.  It’s natural for us to get disappointed when we take a step in faith and ask someone about the Gospel or where they are at in their faith and we get turned down.  We want so badly to help bring people to Christ, but this is where we must trust in God’s power and not our own.  Yes, it would be great to see those big conversions happen right in front of our eyes, but God wants us to be okay with planting the seeds and letting him grow it.  If God is calling you to be more bold, to get uncomfortable for him, to get outside of your comfort zone, are you willing to do it, even if the outcome is not what you expect it to be?  We have to be okay with answering the Holy Spirit’s tug on our heart, regardless of the outcome. 

I often come back to this thought over and over again… Christianity isn’t a faith calling you to comfort, but in coming to Christ, you will find the Father of all comfort and the one who can comfort you through it all.  This doesn’t mean that we will be comfortable at all times.  This doesn’t mean that just because he is the father of comfort, he won’t call us to uncomfortable situations.  Think about Jesus’ walk with the disciples and many of the people in the new testament.  Think about when Lazarus died and Jesus had to walk into the room with Mary and Martha, knowing that they were angry at him for “not helping”.  The whole situation is quite unbearable.  Their pain and sorrow, their confusion with Jesus, yet he knew it was going to happen and Jesus knew the power he had to overturn Lazarus’ death.  Sometimes as we are pulled into uncomfortable situations, it is for the growing of our own faith, for the testing in our walks with Jesus and for the sanctification that will result from the less preferred outcome.  Mary and Martha didn’t know that Jesus was going to bring Lazarus back to life, but in their discomfort, in their pain and sorrow, they still proclaimed the name of Jesus.  “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who was to come into this world.” John 11:37:27 So while they didn’t understand the outcome, that Lazarus had died when Jesus could have healed him before death, they still proclaimed Jesus’ Lordship and sovereignty.  They saw death, Jesus saw life.  We need to be okay with the discomfort of things not going “our way” when we follow Jesus. 

When we choose God, we sometimes go back to our worldly thinking of “all things will be good” because we are being faithful and choosing the right way, not the wrong path- but we must not fall into that trap.  We have to be okay with life still being hard, even when we choose Jesus.  We have to be okay with the illness coming, with the checkbook not balancing, with the friends rejecting us when we choose God.  We have to be okay with God not doing what we always want, but instead what is His will, not ours. 

This brings me to John the Baptist.  John had been waiting for Jesus his entire life… in fact John’s whole mission in life was paving the way for Jesus to come.  He was preparing the way.  In John “preparing the way”, he was called crazy, demon possessed, out of his mind… yet He did it anyway.  John long awaited the Messiah and now he finally came.  I imagine John thought he’d be walking side by side with Jesus, with a smile on his face and an “I told you so” look to the Pharisees… yet the outcome was much different.  John had lived his life faithfully for God.  John followed the commands, bound faithfulness and love around his neck… and loved God with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength- yet he ended up in prison.  John literally baptized the Son of God and still ended up in prison.  Imagine the disappointment and likely doubt going on in John’s head… “This wasn’t how it was supposed to be…”.  Yet it was, because it wasn’t John’s will that be done, but God’s.  When John reached his lowest point of disappointment, doubt arose, “When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent his disciples to ask him, “are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?” Matthew 11:2-4  I imagine John asking this question out of grief.  “God, remember me, John? The one who prepared the way? The one who baptized you? The one who followed in your commands and has been obedient all my life? Remember me, while you’re out there with your disciples, I’m here in prison, bound by chains? This wasn’t how it was supposed to be…”.  John was doing God’s work, but John was also human.  John had prophesies over his life and heard prophecies over what Jesus was going to do too.  He had heard that Jesus would bring “a coming wrath”, that “his winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire”.  Matthew 3:11-12 John was expecting Jesus to come in full force with full power, proving John right to everyone… yet not our will, but God’s be done.  Don’t lose hope with the unexpected outcome… the outcome may not be complete yet.  It’s okay to experience sorrow in the outcome, but we must not lose hope because “wisdom is proved right by her actions.” Matthew 11:19 The outcome may be unexpected, but our actions must always point to Jesus.  

We have to remind ourselves that we are inclined towards comfort, while he is inclined towards our good, even if that means trials of discomfort.  It is in our human nature to think that in choosing Jesus, life will somehow become easier.  While that’s true in a sense, it doesn’t mean the trials of life won’t happen to us.  In fact, the trials of life might get even thicker, but we have a God who will walk with us through those trials, instead of doing it alone.  You need to remind yourself of the path you’ve taken to get to Jesus.  As flawed humans, we tend to choose “our way” and “our control” over God’s, even when the outcome is not desired.  So while we want the outcome to be what we envisioned, we need to remind ourselves that God has a far greater outcome, even if it means valleys for a season.  “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” Romans 8:28 The outcome may not be what you pictured or hoped for, but it has far greater purpose than anything we could’ve storied up.  While your own personal life outcome might seem less desirable, are you okay with another’s outcome meaning salvation, at the sake of your comfort?