Comfort?

“And do not be conformed to thus world be transformed by the renewing of your mind. That you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God” Romans 12:2

Comfort: California family home. hippie treefort ipod. myspace and a hot pocket with the football game on in basketball shorts, no shirt on, best friends. sufjan says all things go and music for days. long hair don’t care. best of all no problems. Hakuna matata .

My life currently has nothing to do at all, whatsoever, zip zam zilch of what I just mentioned above. I get to feed my myspace addiction once a week, but that’s only if Joey isn’t on all day. Maybe. My family consists of my six other team members and my new best friends are homeless. No TV, no football. All things don’t go and I’m Sufjan-less without my ipod. The only hot pockets are areas around Chinatown where drug dealing and prostitution are the most prevalent. Comfort?

“Blake you’ve changed so much…..”

I guess it’s pretty uncomfortable to make friends with someone who happens to be a fairly well known, almost kingpin, basically runnin’ her block, hustlin’ 24/7 type drug dealer. It can also get somewhat uncomfortable when you come to visit her one week and some other drug dealers really don’t want you around their corner and they are verbally expressing their opinion on the matter in such an angry, confrontational way, filled with recognizable expletives and others just understood by implied tones, that you feel the need to pray the last prayer you might ever speak. There I was with my new Salvation Army shirt “Doing the Most Good” with my head down in my lap praying “God I’m so sorry for everything i've ever done to disappoint you. Please forgive me. If I die right here, right now, Father, forgive me”. Well I’m alive and was probably overreacting. Regardless this is not necessarily conforming to the world’s idea of comfort and after that night I definitely had some sort of transformation. Im not as gangsta as I thought I was.

Revolution Hawaii. “A Year to Change a Lifetime”

Are you comfortable at home? Comfortable at church? Are you comfortable with you’re relationship with Jesus? Your prayer life? Purpose? Maybe comfort isn’t such a good thing.

After the situation scared me enough for me to say my final prayer, our strong, stronger than me, Hawaiian hustla with a soft side, drug dealing but beautiful in our eyes, sister in Christ, woman friend valiantly defended our honor, maybe our lives, by cursing and crushing the opposition with an authoritive and convincing speech about how, “These are my church friends. They come to see me every week. I can talk to whoever the f--- I want to”. This subsequently led to apologies not only to her but to us as well. I’m pretty convinced we were all comfortable after she stood up for us. We left with hugs, handshakes, and smiles.

After all my idea of what comfort really means is constantly changing. This change, this unconformity to what the world says, this transformation and renewal of my mind is not my idea, Paul wrote it, Jesus wants it, and I want to not only understand, but live the good, acceptable, and perfect will of God.