Comfort Is My God, Part 1, What 2 Corinthians 11 Revealed About Me

Comfort Is My God (Part 1)

What 2 Corinthians 11 Revealed About Me

This Passage Stopped Me Cold

I was reading 2 Corinthians 11 recently, and the passage describing what Paul endured for the gospel stopped me. It is one of those sections of scripture that forces you to slow down and really consider what you are reading. Paul begins listing the suffering he experienced as he carried the message of Christ into the world, and the more I read it, the more it confronted my own perspective on comfort and faith.

Paul writes:

2 Corinthians 11:24–25 (NIV)
“Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was pelted with stones, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea.”

Five times he received thirty-nine lashes. That means Paul endured one hundred and ninety-five lashes during his ministry. Jesus received thirty-nine lashes once before the cross, and Paul experienced that same punishment five different times while preaching the gospel. When I read that, I cannot help but pause and let it sink in.

This was not a single terrible moment in Paul’s life. It was a repeated pattern of suffering that followed him as he carried the message of Christ from place to place. Along with those lashings, he was beaten with rods, stoned, and shipwrecked three separate times. His ministry was not defined by comfort or stability, but by perseverance through continual hardship.

Then It Turned the Mirror on Me

Reading that makes me examine my own life in a way that is uncomfortable but necessary. Compared to that kind of sacrifice, I live a very comfortable life. Most of us do. If many of us experienced even one of those punishments today, it would dominate our lives. We would likely be calling lawyers, speaking to reporters, and making sure the world knew about the injustice we experienced. Paul endured it again and again and continued forward.

When I encounter opposition or tension, my response is usually very different. My instinct is not to push forward boldly but to turn inward and examine myself. I begin asking questions like, “Am I off? Did I misunderstand something? Am I being ineffective?” Sometimes that internal questioning causes me to hesitate. I choose silence instead of speaking because I prefer peace and calm rather than the chaos that might follow.

That hesitation often sounds humble on the surface, but if I am honest, it can also be very self-focused. My concern becomes about how I will be perceived, whether I am doing things correctly, or whether conflict will disrupt the stability I have built in my life. It becomes more about preserving comfort than pursuing obedience.

The Idol I Didn’t Realize I Built

And that realization reveals something deeper. Comfort has a subtle way of becoming a god. Not because we openly worship it, but because we quietly organize our lives around protecting it. We prefer calm conversations instead of difficult ones. We prefer stability over disruption. We prefer to avoid situations that may invite criticism, rejection, or misunderstanding.

When I look at Paul’s life, I see someone who did not avoid hardship but walked straight into it when obedience required it. That contrast doesn’t just challenge me, it humbles me deeply.

I Believe, But Do I Live Like It Matters?

If I am honest, my struggle is not believing in God. My struggle is living as though what I believe carries the kind of urgency that should move me to act. If I truly believed in hell, if I truly believed what I say I believe, would my daily interactions look different? Would I approach people with more intentionality? Would I spend more time asking Christ to give me His heart for people instead of filtering everything through my own? Would I be willing to set aside the business mindset long enough to recognize that every moment, every conversation, could be an opportunity for God to move through me in a meaningful way?

I can see now how comfort has slowly dimmed that urgency. When I read scripture today, twenty years later as a business professional who has, in many ways, achieved the things I once prayed for in my twenties, I find myself reflecting. Would the twenty-five-year-old version of me be proud of the forty-five-year-old version of me? Would she recognize the same fire, the same boldness, the same willingness to be used by God?

The Hard Truth I Can’t Ignore

Looking at Paul’s life reminds me that while I worked hard to build a life of comfort, that very comfort may have contributed to me becoming lukewarm. And that realization is humbling.



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