Are you uncomfortable?

"And behold, the whole city came out to meet Jesus. And when they saw Him, they begged Him to depart from their region." (Matthew 8:34)

As I read the above Scripture, I thought, why would they want Jesus to leave their area? So I meditated on this for a moment and then it hit me. Jesus made them uncomfortable. Scared. Fearful. What we do not understand, often evolves into fear, unfortunately.

In the previous verses, Jesus had just healed two demon-possessed men. In fact, he cast the demons into a herd of swine, causing them to run off into the sea, killing themselves. The people who were keeping the sheep fled and told everyone what had just happened and that's when the folks came to see Jesus.

Who is this man, right? What is He doing here? How did He do that? We don't understand and we don't want Him here causing trouble so He must go.

An interesting train of thought when you really think about it. Whenever Jesus is doing something in our lives that makes us uncomfortable, we're quite the same. We may not say, go away with our lips, but our actions will do the talking for us. It is manifested in our disobedience to the nudgings of the Holy Spirit or God's Word. It is when we intentionally act out against what we know to be true.

The Good News is that God still loves us and is giving us chance after chance to get it right. If God is doing something in our life that makes you uncomfortable, I encourage you to run closer to Him and not further away. Remember that ultimately, God wants your heart and desires a relationship with you. I believe everything that happens in our lives can be reconciled to that fact.

Prayer: Ask God to search your heart and reveal to you any area where you may be running from Him because of discomfort, fear, or uncertainty. After He has revealed it to you, I encourage you to be intentional in pressing in toward God and surrendering that area of your life to him. In Jesus' name, Amen.