Has Comfort Made You Spiritually Complacent?

By Pastor John Erickson

Comfort is a wonderful thing.

A comfortable chair. A good meal. A day when nothing breaks and nobody needs you to fix an emergency. I am a big fan.

But comfort has a way of becoming something more than a gift. If we aren't careful, it becomes the organizing principle of our lives.

What can I do to avoid inconvenience? How can I make sure nothing disrupts my plans? How do I keep things exactly the way I like them?

The book of Amos speaks to a group of people who had answered those questions rather successfully.

And God was not impressed.

Ivory beds and a broken nation

Amos 6 pictures wealthy people relaxing on luxurious beds, eating excellent food, enjoying music, and drinking wine. By itself, having a pleasant meal isn't the crime.

The indictment is that they don't grieve over the ruin of Joseph-an image for the suffering of God's people.

Life was good for them, so they were unconcerned that life was not good for others.

They weren't merely enjoying a blessing. They had allowed their own comfort to make them indifferent.

That's a difficult distinction to face because indifference rarely announces itself as a deliberate choice. It sounds more like, I have enough going on. Somebody else will handle it.

And over time, we stop noticing.

The danger of being comfortable enough

There is a particular spiritual temptation that comes when we no longer feel much need for anything.

Prayer becomes optional. Dependence on God becomes theoretical. We begin arranging life so that inconvenience is kept at a safe distance.

Then we can slowly lose the ability to recognize the hardship other people are experiencing.

It doesn't always take an obvious act of cruelty to move us away from God's heart. Sometimes all it takes is becoming comfortable enough that we stop paying attention.

James tells believers to consider how trials can grow perseverance. That doesn't mean we should go hunting for suffering. It does mean that difficulty can reveal what comfort has been hiding.

I remember watching Jimmy prepare to lead an evening session at a men's retreat. Speaking in that setting took him outside his comfort zone. In the weeks beforehand, and during the weekend itself, I saw him returning to his Bible, praying, and working through what he would share.

What stood out to me was the growth happening before he ever stood up. The uncomfortable assignment was drawing him toward God.

That is different from making people uncomfortable just for the sake of it. It is an invitation to take a faithful step we might otherwise avoid.

When was the last time you did something that required trust? Something generous that cost you more than spare change? Something loving that interrupted a perfectly good afternoon?

God notices how business gets done

Later, in Amos 8, the prophet addresses merchants who cannot wait for religious observances to end so they can return to selling grain.

The issue isn't that business is bad. The problem is the way they conduct it.

They cheat with dishonest measures. They manipulate the poor. They sell inferior goods. They treat vulnerable people as though a human life could be exchanged for pocket change.

And they are impatient with worship because it interferes with their real priorities.

Imagine sitting through worship while mentally planning how to take advantage of someone the moment you leave.

Amos insists that God sees the whole person. Our faith cannot end at the doors of a religious gathering.

The ordinary tests of integrity

Most of us aren't merchants in ancient Israel, but the questions remain surprisingly practical.

Do we treat customers fairly? Do we honor people who work for us? Do we tell the truth when dishonesty would be profitable? Do we discard people because they no longer serve our interests? Do we notice when a system is rewarding us at somebody else's expense?

The prophet's concern is not a complicated slogan. It is about whether people are treated as human beings made in God's image.

Reading Amos has made me question how easily I excuse things as simply the way business works. Do I assume God only cares about my private spiritual life, while the way people are paid, marketed to, or treated belongs in a separate category?

Amos will not let me keep those categories separate. He names actual practices that harm actual neighbors. That does not turn this passage into a complete modern economic policy. It does mean our business decisions belong within the reach of discipleship.

Sometimes the most spiritual thing you can do is to refuse a dishonest shortcut.

An invitation to wake up

Amos isn't trying to shame people for enjoying life. He is challenging them not to enjoy life so completely that they forget their neighbors.

There is a difference between gratitude and complacency.

Gratitude receives good things as gifts and asks how they can be shared. Complacency receives good things as entitlements and becomes annoyed when anybody suggests responsibility.

I don't want to lose the ability to enjoy a good meal, or laughter, or a day of rest. Those are blessings.

I do want to ask whether I'm allowing those blessings to make me more generous-or merely more protective of my own comfort.

God's call is a gracious interruption: wake up, look around, and live differently.

The life Jesus invites us into is bigger than protecting our favorite chair from interruption.