Dear Comfort Seeker: Only God-Sized Comfort Will Do

I am from a long line of top-notch cozy-creators. I learned from my mom (who learned from her mom) the power of a creamy soup on the stove, chocolate chip cookies in the oven, and a fleece blanket on the lap. Something about the warm and perfectly well-worn invites us to come in and take off our shoes.

Even if cozy aesthetics aren’t your cup of tea, there is something deliciously comfortable in life that serves as solace. Perhaps your morning routine, favorite author, fitness class, or friend group wears like wool socks, snugly confirming you belong.

But comforts can only satisfy according to size. Most earthly delights have the longevity of a Febreze spritz in a stinky bathroom. Coziness is elusive in a cursed world, a cat ever chasing its tail. Life is not tidy, no matter how well we declutter. Sin populates our landscape like teenage acne. How often have we set a lavish table for family, only to have it spoiled by a pre-meal charcuterie board of tension? No matter how you chase the thrill of cozy, any lasting promise of peace, safety, and belonging is just out of reach.

Once, back in Eden, we could nap, play, and put our feet up without care. We walked with our Maker in the cool evening air, naked and unashamed. All was right in the world. Coziness hammocked us because God was near and we were friends.

“We too often settle for misplaced comforts the size of table lamps and cul-de-sacs.”

As those living east of Eden, we need nothing less than God-sized comfort. Our longings for all to be right in the world can only be met in Christ’s redemptive work. He alone brings us home to God. Safe and secure in his family, surrounded by songs of deliverance (Psalm 32:7; Zephaniah 3:17), we can live anywhere: a hole in the ground, a prison cell, on the mission field, and in broken, dysfunctional earthly families.

We can be the most uncomfortable people on the planet because we can taste the lasting comfort coming.

The God of All Cozy

We too often settle for misplaced comforts the size of table lamps and cul-de-sacs. We exchange a bright life as a light and hilltop city (Matthew 5:14–16) for the dull life of a hoarder and recluse. We reserve the Spirit’s fruit for our favorite circles only. We prefer the lighting in our castle to the darkness over there (wherever your “there” may be).

Living in a cul-de-sac is not the problem, nor is the answer to jump on a plane and renounce our Yankee Candles. Christian homes can be some of the coziest, to the glory of God and for the good of others. Some of the most worshipful moments in my life have been when I’ve lit a candle and set out a nice breakfast for my kids. The crepes and candlelight declared God’s goodness to my children in the face of the day’s problems. Yes, we miss Grandpa and faraway friends, we have frustrating OCD tendencies to manage, and we face another week of math. And yes — our Father sets the table.

God sets a table in the wilderness of today. We toil outside the garden, but Jesus has not left us as orphans (John 14:18). We are bloodied by sin and suffering, but God is near. So near, in fact, that nothing can separate us from his love (Romans 8:38–39). Jesus has gone to make a home for us in heaven (John 14:3), and the “God of all comfort” sends care packages as we wait (2 Corinthians 1:3). What kid, far from home, doesn’t beam at receiving a box of homemade goodies from Mom and Dad?

But what beats the postcard or package in the mailbox is the cousin around the corner, the soldier back from war, the friend stepping off the plane to be with you — the loved one himself. “God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son.” John 3:16 is a love letter that lives. God loves you in Jesus, which means you have all that you need.

Feasting in the wilderness is rustic, but the food is more than satisfactory. Jesus is our manna, honey-sweet. Observe the linens, bright with his steadfast love and mercy, and a seat all your own, reserved and royal. See the clothes he has provided for the occasion, white and clean. Taste the rich promises of God’s word; drink deeply of the Spirit that fills you. Don’t worry about the price of the wine and bread. Your Father pays the bill.

Nomads, Not Country-Club Members

Redeemed people taste enough of heaven’s feast to wait for it patiently. Every good and cozy gift fills them with thanksgiving, as does every thorn and valley. They are luminous like Job, who in both comfort and lack asked, “Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?” (Job 2:10). Those who feast in the already-but-not-yet say with David, “I am a sojourner with you, a guest, like all my fathers” (Psalm 39:12).

Such people traverse their lifetimes like nomads rather than country club members. If their Savior “has nowhere to lay his head” (Luke 9:58), they avoid entitlement to forever homes close to grandparents and living beyond what they can afford. They are ready to turn down any comfort for Jesus’s sake.

“Redeemed people know what true comfort tastes like.”

And we will face times of serious discomfort. Jesus knows the discomfort of your depression, your grief, and the scream you let loose alone in the family van. Perhaps your home life is the opposite of cozy. Like an attentive father dropping to his knees and taking your face in his hands, God says in perfect directness, “I, I am he who comforts you” (Isaiah 51:12).

Wilderness discomfort is too heavy for your best friend, spouse, or venti frappe double whip. But it isn’t too weighty for God. Like the Israelites wedged between enemy and sea, where do you feel the heat? Not yet in the land of milk and honey, what do you thirst for? Your God can cut raging seas like a cake; there is not a single discomfort he won’t flip on its head the moment he knows you need it. The redeemed sing with Moses on countless shores, “You have led in your steadfast love the people whom you have redeemed; you have guided them by your strength to your holy abode” (Exodus 15:13).

Comfortable Like a Christian

Indulge in comfort like a Christian, wrapped in the patchwork quilt of God’s common grace that can take the shape of warm brownies, fresh-cut flowers, and lakeside walks. Yet chiefly draw strength from Christ’s eternal comforts. Redeemed people know what true comfort tastes like, so they sidestep the bear traps of materialism and long spiritless naps. The anchored people of God set down their cup of Cozy Chamomile to enlist in God’s mission. Christ’s completed victory is our safety and security in the wilderness, sending us “marching as to war, with the cross of Jesus going on before.”

Crave cozy all the more; you’re on your way.