"Comfortable" is over-rated.

 

While some long stay carp anglers have bivvies more luxuriously appointed than my three bed semi, complete with mini TV, padded bedchair and goodness knows what else (I've even once seen a bivvy in which the angler, who was wearing slippers, had put some squares of rather posh looking carpet on top of his groundsheet!), most angling is done in relative discomfort.

Sure, you might have one of those match fishing seatboxes with loads of gizmos that screw onto it, or a nice padded fishing chair, but at the end of most days of fishing, once you're past childhood, you find yourself coming home with, at the very least, a dose of backache. I've often fished without a chair, electing to remain more mobile, and sat on the lid of my bait bucket or an unhooking mat, or crouched for hours on my haunches, which isn't the wisest thing to do when your knees bear the "wear and tear" results of two decades of playing football! And then there are the insect bites, and the stinging nettles, and getting soaked to the skin or coming home with frozen fingers and chilblains. It may not be the most active and physically demanding of pastimes, but fishing isn't for the faint hearted. But when you're fishing a small stream and have crawled on your hands and knees through nettles in pursuit of chub, and look at your capture laying in the folds of the net on the bank, you never question the fact that the effort and discomfort were worth the reward.

It's pretty much the same in the Christian life. Trying to commit to reading the Bible every day, avoiding the temptation to be self-centred or unkind or critical, going to church when you'd rather stay in bed, doing the "right thing" rather than the "easiest thing", attempting to "love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and strength, and your neighbour as yourself" - let's be honest, these things aren't always easy. A life without reference to God would almost certainly be easier .... more "comfortable."

But the irony is that "comfortable" doesn't bring "comfort." It's when we step out in faith and do the difficult thing and when we seek to put God at the centre of our lives, when with the Apostle Paul we say "for me to live is Christ" (Philippians 1:21), it's at those times that we truly know the joy and the comfort that only comes from being a follower of Jesus. 

Don't settle for comfortable in either fishing or discipleship, because if you do you really will be settling for second best.