Led Out to Be Held Up
When God pulls us from comfort to reveal Himself in new ways
Beloved Friend,
Sometimes, comfort can become a soft trap.
It doesn’t start that way. At first, it feels like safety. It feels like reward. You’ve just come out of a hard season, and now you’ve finally found rhythm. Routine. A little peace. The waters are still. And so you settle. You breathe.
But over time, what once felt like rest can start to feel like reluctance. It becomes harder to stretch. Harder to move. Harder to believe there’s more outside this zone we’ve padded with preference.
I’ve seen this in my own life. I’m that girlie who loves what feels familiar. If I’m at my mum’s place, it takes serious effort to convince myself to return to my sister’s. When I’m finally at my sister’s, going back to my mum’s feels like a project. It’s not that I don’t love both spaces, I do. But the moment I find comfort in one, it becomes hard to let it go. My brain convinces me that staying put is safer, easier, wiser.
And honestly, this is not just about location. It’s how I’ve responded to change in general opportunities that stretch me, new people that feel different, instructions from God that don’t come with clear signs and soft landings.
But lately, I’ve been learning something: comfort is not always evidence of God’s presence, and discomfort is not always absence of it. Sometimes, He leads us into tight corners. Sometimes He’s the One pointing us toward the sea, the very place that looks like there’s no way forward.
During my Bible study, I was reading Exodus 14 and came across verse 2. It caught my breath.
“Tell the Israelites to turn back and camp near Pi Hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea…”
(Exodus 14:2, NIV)
Wait, God told them to camp near the sea? That same sea they’d later panic about? The one that made them feel trapped between Pharaoh’s army and certain death?
Yes, that one.
The Lord didn’t randomly allow it. He intentionally positioned them there. He even said in verse 4 that He was going to “gain glory” for Himself through Pharaoh’s pursuit. Meaning, He set the stage for discomfort, not to punish them, but to glorify Himself in a different way.
He led them to the place where only He could deliver, only He could show up, only He could part the waters.
It made me pause. Because many times, I see a closed door or an overwhelming change and immediately assume something’s gone wrong. But what if that place of tightness is not a mistake? What if God is simply ready to do something new?
What if He’s the One that moved you?
We sometimes assume growth should feel like floating; smooth, effortless, obvious. But sometimes growth looks like being stuck between an army and an ocean. And trust me, if you’re there, God knows.
He leads us out of comfort not to abandon us but to reintroduce Himself. As Deliverer. As Defender. As the One who opens paths in places we’ve never walked before.
So, maybe you’re in that season. Maybe you’re somewhere that doesn’t quite make sense, and everything in you wants to go back to what felt normal. But I want you to pause and remember: before you found comfort where you’re trying to return to, it also used to feel unfamiliar. You were once scared there too. You once doubted there. You grew into it.
And you can grow again.
The same God that held your hand in the last stretch is still holding it now. He hasn’t changed. He’s just moving you. And this time, it’s not just for your comfort, it’s for His glory.
Stay still. Trust. Watch the waters part.
With thoughts of kindness,
ABBA’s Shofar