seeking comfort is almost always the surest path to a life of discomfort.

​There is a great paradox in life. And that is seeking comfort is almost always the surest path to a life of discomfort. Don't get me wrong, I think it's healthy to want to find a comfortable space in life. The problem comes when we start believing comfort is the ideal path to that space.

I look back at my recent Georgia Jewel experience. The 38 miles I traveled to get to the finish line were almost all mountainous and rocky. They were hard. They were uncomfortable. They were painful.

Fortunately, I'd done this running thing enough to know that's the way it had to be - the path to comfort had to be rocky and painful or I was never going to find that comfortable space at the finish line. A happy running ending just never happens without a rocky run.

I think about my job. I think about how often I keep pushing to the side the things that are hardest to do. The painful tasks. I do that in spite of knowing those tasks are hardest because they are the ones most critical to getting the job done. The hard tasks that leave me feeling stressed and exhausted are the ones that ultimately lead me to a comfortable space in my job.

I think about relationships. How we are drawn into them because things feel good and right. Until they don't, because relationships are like running and like jobs. There are going to be rocks on the trail. If you've anticipated them, because you know rocks are on the path to a healthy relationship, the rocks will be welcome. If not, finding that comfortable space becomes unlikely.

And I think about my relationship with God. I think about how I never wanted anything to do with God because God wasn't as good at making me feel good as I'd imagined he'd be. As some folks told me he'd be.

Then I started reading the bible. And every story in there was about God making heroes and comfortable spaces out of people who had to travel the rockiest roads imaginable. I couldn't find one story that followed the arc of comfortable living to comfortable life.

It's like God and the bible were modeled after real life - the most comfortable spaces come from the hardest times.

I mean - the exclamation point on the bible story is the greatest paradox of all - Jesus dying on a cross for us to have an eternal comfortable space in life.

I'm not telling you to not go into the world today looking for your comfortable space. I'm simply suggesting that if life starts to feel uncomfortable, it might mean you're on the exact right trail. It's possible you're reading wrong the sign we often see in discomfort that says "WRONG WAY - TURN AROUND."

Sometimes a rocky trail is precisely the sign we need to tell us comfort is just ahead.