Comfort Detox E-Book

Erin M. Straza

• Herausgeber: IVP
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Seitenzahl: 293

Beschreibung

"For too long I have lived life on comfort mode, making choices for life engagement based on safety, ease, and convenience. It has left me very little wiggle room, just a small parcel of real estate upon which to live, move, and have my being. It's not quite the abundant life Jesus was offering." Whether we're aware of it or not, our minds, bodies, and souls often seek out what's comfortable. Erin Straza has gone on a journey of self-discovery, awakening to her own inherent drive for a comfort that cannot truly fulfill or satisfy. She depicts her struggles with vulnerability and honesty, and shares stories of other women who are on this same path. Straza also provides practical insights and exercises to help you find freedom from the lure of the comfortable. This detox program will allow you to recognize pseudo versions of comfort and replace them with a conviction to embrace God's true comfort. Discover the secret to countering the comfort addiction and become available as God's agent of comfort to serve a world that longs for his justice and mercy.

Leseprobe

ERIN M. STRAZA

comfort detox

FINDING FREEDOM FROM HABITS THAT BIND YOU

To Mike, the one

who walks with me in this life

and heaps God’s comfort on me

every step of the way

Contents

Introduction: Why a Detox?

1 A Severe Mercy

Part 1 Comfort Gone Rogue

2 Confined

3 Detached

4 Absorbed

Part 2 Comfort Redeemed

5 The Comforter

6 The Comforted

Part 3 Comfort Set Loose

7 Free

8 Engaged

9 Captivated

Parting Words: A New Kind of Normal

Acknowledgments

Notes

Praise for Comfort Detox

About the Author

More Titles from InterVarsity Press

Copyright

Introduction

Why a Detox?

Detoxing is all the rage these days. A quick online search produces testimonies from people who have detoxed from drugs, alcohol, Diet Coke, toxins, sugar, digital devices, and holiday madness. Programs are available to participate in a spring detox, the Martha’s Vineyard Detox Diet, a colon cleanse, a liver cleanse, a full-body cleanse, an emotional detox, a seasonal detox, and even a post-divorce detox.

One thing is sure: we feel the need to remove the things in our lives that are weighing us down and making us feel sluggish. I see comfort as one of these shackles.

In its pure form, comfort is a gift from God. Comfort is even God himself, for he is our Comforter: “I, I am he who comforts you” (Is 51:12). Let me be clear: the comfort of God is not the problem. Like many other things this side of the fall, our understanding and pursuit of comfort is askew. We want comfort, and we can find it in full from God.

The real problem is that we have sought comfort in all the wrong places, everywhere but God. We look for comfort in people, places, and things. We return to the same faulty sources we know because the unknown is scary. We soothe the discomfort of our anxieties with food, shopping, exercise, control, sex, and isolation. Comfort pursuits are endless. We have chased comfort all around, and it has led us to places we would never choose outright. We are all-in, all-out comfort addicts; comfort beckons, and we willingly follow.

A detox is needed if we are ever to experience true comfort that truly satisfies. And so this book is for anyone who is searching for true comfort, no matter your age, status, profession, or background. Whether old or young, rich or poor, male or female—we are all prone to turn to substitute comforts. We all need to learn how to seek the Comforter.

You may wonder whether taking the comfort detox journey will lead you to an ascetic life, one where you must purposefully choose discomfort or pain because that’s a more noble pursuit. Or perhaps you wonder whether I will challenge you to live a daredevil life, tackling the things that frighten you the most—skydiving or public speaking or moving to a Third World nation or something.

I assure you, that is not the point of this book. The apostle Paul urges us “to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” (Eph 4:22-24). A comfort detox is this same call—putting off the old ways to make room for the new.

New York Times business writer Charles Duhigg explores the science behind our patterns and routines in his book The Power of Habit. Duhigg explains that habits are made up of a three-part loop: a cue (what prompts your brain to autopilot mode), a routine (a pattern that is physical, mental, or emotional in nature), and a reward (the benefit or perk of the routine). Understanding and interrupting that loop is key to breaking a habit.1 Habits give our brains the ability to conduct regular, repeated functions while in autopilot mode. On the one hand, this gives us more brainpower for other functions; habits are quite useful. On the other hand, our habits make it difficult to switch gears once our cue is triggered. Autopilot kicks in and our habits take over—unless we work to replace them with another habit.

Living for what gives or maintains the greatest amount of personal comfort is our long-established habit.

Living for what gives or maintains the greatest amount of personal comfort is our long-established habit. At the core, that’s what comfort is—it’s a habit, a way of life. Comfort has become the default. We make decisions to protect it without even realizing it. We are on autopilot, and the destination is locked in, returning us to our comfort zone time after time. Duhigg insists that “habits aren’t destiny . . . [but] the brain stops fully participating in decision making . . . so unless you deliberately fight a habit—unless you find new routines—the pattern will unfold automatically.”2 Freedom is found when undesirable habits are identified and the cue-routine-reward structure is defined, pulled apart, and reframed. In the context of our discussion, the cue is a desire for comfort, the routine is the pattern by which comfort is obtained, and the reward is some form of self-soothing, whether that be control, emotional security, power, status, or the like.

Pulling those elements apart is tough work. But really, Christians have an advantage here. New life in Christ infuses us with his Spirit, granting us power to say no to sin and yes to righteousness. With a better understanding of the Spirit’s presence and promise to us, we can tackle this comfort habit head on. It will take some prayer, some journaling, some heavenly insight, some time, some practice. We need to introduce new information into our patterns to disrupt our autopilot and wake our brains up from their comfort stupor. Our brains need to engage and make decisions again, instead of floating along the paths of least resistance.

Some habits are so well ingrained that we can’t even see them. We’ve grown blind to them, and our brains are content to run on autopilot. That’s another reason why a detox is so beneficial. It will make us aware of the habits running our lives behind the scenes and below the surface.

Awareness is only half the battle though. Once we see how comfort has shrunk our lives down to a fraction of all God intended, then the hard work begins. We have to push back against the mindlessness. We need to practice new habits that are truly life giving, ones that lead us back to God. In a sermon titled “The Expulsive Power of a New Affection,” Scottish preacher Thomas Chalmers said, “The only way to dispossess [the heart] of an old affection, is by the expulsive power of a new one.”3 A new affection is the only thing strong enough to overcome an old one. We must become captivated by the God who loves us enough to provide the comfort we so desperately need.

My own comfort detox began with putting off the sluggish and selfish thought-habits I had always practiced. And this is where your comfort detox begins as well: on the inside, dealing with the way you process information to make everyday decisions. I dub this our decision matrix. Each one of us has an internal set of values by which we live our lives. When we face a choice, these values tell us—even subconsciously—how a particular opportunity aligns with our value system. The decision matrix runs its split-second analysis, spitting out either a yes or a no, thereby determining our next steps. We each have a decision matrix; the question is, do we know the values that dictate what we agree to and what we decline? It’s crucial to know, for this matrix holds much power over us, keeping us within our predefined comfort zones. We will have to take a brave look within to trace words and actions back to the root of comfort addiction. And then we will ask God to do the miraculous: to tear down the old matrix so that he can rebuild a new one set on something more worthy than personal comfort.

Although I am not sure what God will teach you along the way or what he may ask you to do, one thing we can know for certain is that our God is not anti-comfort. Rather, he asks us to put off pseudo comforts to make room for true comfort—the comfort that flows straight from him, our Comforter. We have run for so long to false comforts, however, that true comfort seems hard to find. Running to God is not automatic, even for the Christian. Old habits die hard. So practice we must if we are to develop new ways of thinking about and pursuing true comfort. That’s the putting on part that Paul speaks of in his letter to the Ephesians. We need to retrain our brains, our hearts, and our wills to seek a comfort that truly satisfies.

We need to retrain our brains, our hearts, and our wills to seek a comfort that truly satisfies.

This is why we need a detox. Breaking old habits is never easy! And our bad habits have a way of binding us to life-depleting thought patterns and behaviors. Detoxing will upend those draining habits, thereby flooding new life and light into worn-out places. It’s an out-with-the-old, in-with-the-new exchange. The detox process is as simple—and as difficult—as that. The Bible tells us that no discipline is pleasant in the moment; on the flip side, however, the hard work of discipline promises to yield a plentiful harvest for those who have been trained by it (Heb 12:11). Saying no to false comfort breaks its hold on our hearts, giving us space enough to breathe, to think, and to seek God and true comfort instead of short-lived substitutes. If we submit to the discipline of saying no to pseudo comforts and saying yes to the real thing, plentiful comfort will be ours to enjoy. Learning to seek God instead of our vices will yield a multitude of blessing. The promised harvest is well worth the detox process.

We must begin by clearing out the clutter and putting off the old ways. Be gentle with yourself as you enter into this process. Ask God to show you how comfort has gone rogue in your life, binding you to unhealthy, ungodly habits. Consider how you can practice saying no to the false and yes to true. In essence, you will be saying yes to more of God’s presence and provision for your every need.

To help you keep moving forward in the process, I’ve included a section at the end of each chapter called Comfort Cleanse. The Comfort Cleanse steps have also been packaged in a free journal available as a downloadable print-ready PDF at ivpress.com/comfortdetox. (A full list of resource links can be found at erinstraza.com/comfort-detox.) Both the book and the journal will walk you through the main concepts of a comfort detox by providing activities and application exercises. Each exercise is tagged as a step, but please know that you may be processing these steps in tandem rather than in succession. Feel free to read the book in full and then complete the Comfort Cleanse steps in weeks to come, or complete the steps as you read each chapter. Either way works.

There is no ideal timeframe for working through the detox, although I suggest reading the book consistently over two or three months so you don’t lose momentum. Twenty-one days seems to be the popular standard for breaking or establishing a habit. But research shows it’s actually much longer—as short as two months and as long as eight.4 I land on the longer end of the habit-­formation timeline. And maintaining the habits I’ve introduced and refusing to return to the ones I’ve put aside? That takes a lifetime. This is a marathon, not a sprint. Just like a sugar detox or a whole-body cleanse, a comfort detox isn’t a once-and-done endeavor. What is learned in this season will cause great growth. But as seasons change, I’ve found myself revisiting old principles and applying them anew to gain new insights and nurture maturity. These ideas keep coming back around.

Of tremendous help in this progressive growth is going the way with others. Living in deep connection to friends who are pursuing Jesus is how we experience that sharpening of character, values, motives, and actions. Left to ourselves, it is easier to return to old habits along the paths of least resistance, leading us right back to comfort’s door. Eugene Peterson’s comments are helpful: “There are two biblical designations for people of faith that are extremely useful: disciple and pilgrim. Disciple (mathētēs) says we are people who spend our lives apprenticed to our master. . . . Pilgrim (parepidēmos) tells us we are people who spend our lives going someplace, going to God, and whose path for getting there is the way, Jesus Christ.”5 People of faith are disciples and pilgrims, neither of which Peterson refers to in the singular. This is a team effort. We need each other for encouragement, accountability, laughter, support, and company. The people I am on the way with have made this a much better journey.

Most people I know who establish new patterns of healthy living do so in community. What we eat and the activities we choose are greatly influenced by the people we do life with. As we start this comfort detox journey, I recommend that you get your people to go with you. Working together will be easier than if you try to go the way alone. Taking steps together to say no to comfort’s lure will give you momentum. We need the fire of others to keep us from growing lukewarm and weary, to remind us why comfort detox is necessary for the health of our souls.

Do you have fellow pilgrims to go the way with? Gather them up. We are going where true comfort satisfies and false comforts no longer hold sway. Invite your people to join the detox. The journey is always made sweeter with friends. In the Comfort Cleanse sections I’ve included steps you can take together.

We start in part one, “Comfort Gone Rogue,” looking at all the ways we live bent on improving our own comfort levels through our own resources. This is where we will face the questions that haunt our hearts and frighten us into hoarding what we have. We will gain insight on how false comfort lures us in and maintains its power over every decision. Daily decisions, relationships, lifestyle choices—all these will receive a thorough assessment to expose hidden pockets of comfort addiction.

Getting our comfort addiction out in the open is a necessary first step in the detox process. We need to know what we’re dealing with! After facing our addiction head on, we turn to two beautiful words that divide our journey in half: But God. These are the same words echoed throughout Scripture putting an end to what was and signaling the beginning of hope. By working through the detox challenges in part one, we will have mental space and room in our hearts to consider what our lives might be if comfort addiction no longer had the strongest pull on us.

Then we venture on to the middle section, “Comfort Redeemed,” where we will find a respite. Here we will pause and rest to consider the beauty and mystery of God’s purposes in wiring us to be drawn to comfort. Because we are not self-sufficient, our need for God and things outside of ourselves humbles us. Our need for soothing and help is one reminder, designed to prompt us toward God for the true and lasting comfort we cannot find anywhere else in this world. As we turn from pseudo comforts, our appetites for true Comfort will grow and our satisfaction in God will deepen.

But the detox process doesn’t end there! After breaking free from what’s false and establishing patterns for what’s true, it’s time to practice new, life-giving habits. In part three, “Comfort Set Loose,” we’ll return to those daily decisions, relationships, and lifestyle choices from part one. Here we will live out our calling to be agents of God’s comfort and mercy to others, rather than mere consumers and hoarders of it. By practicing these new habits, we will carve out a few new patterns to live by that will change the course of our days.

Getting to the end of a book can be bittersweet. Nothing beats the satisfaction of finishing a good read! But there’s also sadness that the journey is done, coupled with uncertainty about how to process and apply new ideas. My desire is to help you finish this read well, so the “Parting Words: A New Kind of Normal” offers encouragement for moving forward in tangible, practical ways. Our new habits will make us into the comfort agents God has called us to be! This is how we can meet a world of need—in our homes, neighborhoods, communities, and world. Once the habits that bind us are broken, we will be free to live fully in the comfort of God.

Comfort Cleanse

Step 1: Gathering Your People

Eugene Peterson points out that in the Bible people of faith are referred to as disciples and pilgrims. Neither is in the singular form, which points to the necessity of living in community. The people we spend time with are the ones who hold much sway over how we live day to day. Your comfort detox journey will be much more effective if you go the way with others! I recommend that you:

Consider downloading the free Comfort Detox Journal. Get the print-ready PDF at ivpress.com/comfortdetox.Find a few friends who will commit to the process with you, and write down all of your names.Decide how you will read this book and complete the Comfort Cleanse activities; specifically state how many pages or chapters you will read each week.Make a plan for discussing what you are learning; it could be a daily text check in, a once-a-week meeting, or a once-a-month gathering.Share your desire for taking this comfort detox journey and any concerns you have as you begin.

- 1 -

A Severe Mercy

By the time I stepped off the plane in India, I was spent. Nineteen hours of travel plus the prep frenzy to leave the country had done me in. Our team’s 4 a.m. arrival meant my first views of the city were shrouded in darkness; we checked into our hotel rooms to rest a few hours before the day’s itinerary kicked in.

If I had known what was ahead of me that morning, I would have stayed in bed. Maybe I wouldn’t have gone to India at all.

Up to that point, my life had been rather sheltered. I knew it, but I didn’t know the extent of it. I had constructed for myself a comfortable life, one that limited pain of any sort as much as possible. Anything that challenged my comfort was summarily dismissed, avoided, rejected.

But then I went to India, and God shredded my heart. Every­thing I had come to know went through the grinder and came out the other side in fragmented pieces. This is what I call The Shredding.

It was completely disorienting, to say the least. What I saw and the people I met there broke me—and like Humpty Dumpty, there was no putting this girl back together again. My life will never be the same. I know—it sounds cliché. Girl goes to India; India changes her life. It’s not cliché for me, however. It was more than a journey of self-discovery. This was a journey to understanding the very heart of God.

The Shredding

That two-hour rest the morning we arrived was fitful at best. Not the best way to start a ten-day trip through Western India. I was there for my freelance writing work; one of my clients was based in India, providing a permanent, secure family for girls at risk of being trafficked into the sex trade. I was asked to join the organization’s staff trip to see firsthand what I had been writing about. I jumped at the chance. Seeing new places is one of my favorite things, and going to India? How exciting! For weeks before, I imagined myself eating curry at every turn, being dazzled by beautiful saris, and meeting the seventy-five amazing girls whose lives had been rescued from destruction. It sounded utterly magical.

In many ways, it was a magical trip. Surreal may be a better word. This alternate reality I was dropped into took my own and turned it upside down and inside out.

Complete disorientation should have been listed as the first entry on the trip agenda. After that scant post-flight nap and a bite to eat, our team piled into the vehicles that would take us to one of the red-light districts. The frantic buzz of city traffic seemingly had a life of its own, enveloping our car into its flow. Rules of the road are less formal there, where pedestrians, bicyclists, scooters, rickshaws, and vehicles move fluidly to fill up every inch of road. It was lovely and exhilarating and overly stimulating, especially in my travel-weary state.

As our driver sped us about, weaving in and out of the hubbub, I saw much that looked familiar, reminding me of my version of normal. There were lovely hotels and buildings, shopping centers, fancy restaurants, and luxury vehicles on the streets. The opulence, however, was juxtaposed with something very different from my normal: slum-level poverty. Between newly constructed high-rise buildings were rows upon rows of tarp dividers where a seemingly endless mass of people lived their lives. I strained my neck as we passed, trying to force my mind to make sense of what my eyes were seeing. This was real life for them. This was not normal. At least not for me.

More than 240 million people in India live on less than two dollars a day; another 939 million survive on two to ten dollars a day.1 Based on what I was seeing, I believed it. My normal, compared to theirs, suddenly looked more like extreme wealth, with all its food, clothing, shelter, sanitation, health care, education, and opportunity.

We drove deep into the city, its crowded, narrow streets packed with vendors selling everything from fresh fruits to sunglasses to fabric to phones. Soon the driver pulled to the side—it was time to get out, to become participants in the bustle.

Our team leader instructed the women to keep sunglasses and scarves on at all times and to stick close. The men were instructed to lead the way and bring up the rear and to keep an eye out for safety concerns (whatever that meant). Then we began walking. I figured we had a bit of a trek, because I assumed the red-light district would be far removed from the regular city life happening around us.

I was wrong. We turned a corner and everything changed. With every step the cacophony of the city faded, replaced by an eerie quiet that seemed odd for mid-morning. There were a few men loitering along the edges of the buildings, staring at us suspiciously. I was equally suspicious, and my heart began to race. What was this place? Then it hit me: this was it. This was the district. Just one block off Main Street. Just a block over from the vendors selling food to the people who worked downtown was this place of devastation. Did the vendors and customers know what happened to women and girls just around the corner from where they grabbed lunch or walked to meetings? My mind was racing with the ­absurdity of this place and its proximity to a regular life that the women and girls in the district would never know.

Walking through the neighborhood, I wanted to both take it all in and shove it all away. Extreme poverty, spiritual heaviness, staring eyes, excited children running around us—all my senses were engaged and my comfort zone was gone.

We visited with several long-time residents of the district. These women had somehow ended up there, either by birth or kidnapping, with no escape save death. Brothel owners and pimps use threats, violence, and abuse to keep their moneymakers in line. City officials turn blind eyes; some even deliver fleeing women back to their captors. There are no gates or locks to keep women inside the district—the system does it instead. The system is a spiritual stronghold, for I could feel its weight from the moment we entered. How could these women survive here, day in, day out? I begged God to help me give each woman respect through my attentive presence, even though I wanted to run. Deep breaths and prayer became my lifeline as thoughts screamed in my head: How can this be for real? How can this woman survive in such a damp, dungeon-like room? What’s that stench? Stop staring! Don’t you dare cry.

Our last visit was with a woman who warmly welcomed us to her one-room home situated in the lower level of a parking garage. The curtain that served as her front door did little to muffle the engine noise or stifle the vehicle fumes just beyond the fabric. She and our team leaders spoke for a few moments in Hindi; it seemed like small talk. It gave me time to look around and see her life. There was a bed, a few shelves with personal items, a chair, a table. But then she wanted all of our attention—she had something to show us. It was her prized possession: a hot plate. A hot plate. It allowed her to cook right there in her one-room home. I have never been that excited about my entire kitchen. But I couldn’t rejoice over her hot plate because all I could think about was what she faced every night, what she would face later that night. I was told men lined up at her curtained door—ten to twenty of them a night. On a good night, those who paid the pimp for sex with her would not beat her. This was her normal, everyday life.

It is estimated that millions of women and girls are enslaved in the sex trade in India alone.2 The few women I met made this real to me. In light of these women, representative of millions more, my normal wasn’t so normal. My normal looked way more like privilege, freedom, and honor. I felt ill over everything I had, everything these women did not. And the thoughts continued to rage at me: Compared to these women, I can do anything I want with my life. Am I taking advantage of that? What would these women do if they got to live how I live? Am I squandering the life of freedom I’ve been given? Am I using what I’ve been given to multiply freedom for others?

We walked out of the parking garage to the car that would whisk us away, back to the lives we were free to return to. We passed a group of women and children who had gathered to see the outsiders. One woman reached out and ran her hand down my sleeve. I turned and looked into her glassy eyes, giving a weak smile as I kept walking. She looked drugged, lost. What prompted her to reach out to me? What did she want? Whatever it was, I felt helpless. She was stuck in this district life; I would get to walk out and go on with mine. We got into our car, and I closed the door against the brokenness. I was glad to have a window seat so I could stare outside and gulp back tears. The massive ugly cry would have to wait.

The Question

For the entire drive back to the hotel, all the thoughts inside me could be summed up into one four-word question: What am I doing? The Question, as I now call it, screamed at me, inside me, touching on all aspects of how I live and view the world. It was actually the same question that had haunted me on and off over the years.

In the past, The Question had typically come at me in stealth as I went about the daily routine of my typical American life. It pounced most often when I was in an emotionally thin place—running low on rest or high on stress. One minute I would be bustling about, and then I would hear The Question, taunting me for how I was living and whether it mattered at all. What am I doing? would echo in my ear, as life would spin on; but it would feel like I had stepped outside time, observing myself detached from a world at full speed. My heartbeat would throb in my ears, my breath would catch, my panic would rise. It makes me shudder just thinking about it.

Have you heard its breathy whisper in your own ear? It isn’t pleasant. I hated The Question because of all the discomfort it caused.

I was uncomfortable because I was never quite sure how to answer. For if I had to give an account for myself, on an average day of my fairly average life, this is what I was doing: I work and I write. I spend time with loved ones. I read and learn. I eat good food. I rest. I entertain myself. I travel. I visit quaint coffee shops and sip four-dollar lattes. I run. I enjoy my home with heat for the cold and cold for the heat; sometimes I even clean it. I attend worship on Sundays. I pray. I play games on my smartphone. I watch TV. I do laundry (unless my husband beats me to it). I make lists of errands. I lose time on the InterWebs. All these things and more added up to the sum of my life. This was what I was doing. Was this the answer The Question was searching for? I’m still not sure. As I buzzed around, going to work and play, seeking more of the same normal that everyone around me was chasing, I wondered if this was the point of it all. That’s why The Question haunted me—because it felt like something was off, but I was too scared to take a long, hard look at myself to figure it out.

As I buzzed around, going to work and play, seeking more of the same normal that everyone around me was chasing, I wondered if this was the point of it all.

And that’s why, over the years, I didn’t give much room for The Question to linger: it made me uneasy. It disrupted the comfort I had accumulated, the routines I had established. In response to The Question I had always pressed on in my routines, holding it all tight against my chest and keeping on with the status quo.

That avoidance maneuver ran out of time for me in February 2012 when I went to India.

God’s timer was ticking down to the moment when my normal would splinter and crack wide open. Normal could no longer be my shield, my covering, a way of deflecting The Question that sought to pull me into the reality of what I was doing with my life and what the rest of the world does with theirs. With The Shredding, the splintering of my normal, The Question gained full access to my heart.

I had to face it head on.

What exactly did The Shredding do to me? It forced me to see that the point of my life is not me and my whims for gaining and maintaining comfort for personal enjoyment.

It’s one thing to hear about the discomfort others experience—extreme poverty, sex trafficking, brothels, slum communities, starvation, neglect, exploitation, enslavement. It’s another thing to see it with your own eyes. Seeing firsthand forces you to deal with reality—to deal with the normal that is not your own. It didn’t take even a day in India before I reached total meltdown. The normal I encountered was a punch in the gut.

The magnitude of need I saw was overwhelming. So many women and girls enslaved. So many people living in squalor. So much sickness, hunger, hopelessness, and darkness. There was a world in desperate need of the hope and comfort that only God could provide—yet most of my days were spent gaining and maintaining comfort for myself. This could not be the purpose God had for me. Certainly God had more in mind for me than moving through life in a zombie-like shuffle, dead to the world’s needs.

The Shredding affirmed that longing, reminding me that I have indeed been bought with a price for a purpose; my life is not my own. Now that I have been redeemed by Jesus, my life is to be poured out as a drink offering to him. I have the honor of serving as his hands and feet in this world, extending comfort to all who are in need.

If I am to do so, the contrary habits and patterns I’ve lived by all my life need to be undone. All the ways I’ve lived to expand my own comfort for my own benefit need to be dismantled. This includes my daily routines, my approach to relationships, and my life pursuits. Each of these areas needs to be examined; the decision matrix I mentioned in the introduction needs to be reset. The Shredding brought an awareness of the way comfort had been ruling my life. Embracing that awareness set my comfort detox in motion.

Your own comfort detox begins as mine did, with a Shredding that will soften your heart to receive all that God has to teach you. Now, my Shredding happened in India, but to be clear, going to India is not the prerequisite for a comfort detox. You do not need to book a trip or do something particularly momentous. God is fully capable of shredding our hearts wherever we are, to help us face the reality that everything revolves around him and his kingdom, not us. The benefits of gaining such an understanding have been invaluable for me, which is what inspired me to craft this book. As you process the ideas and complete the exercises in each chapter, you will be yielding to the heart Shredding needed for your detox and purposefully placing yourself in the pathway of God’s life-changing grace. There’s a saying that most of life is just about showing up. The principle seems to apply here. Most of the comfort detox process is about showing up in God’s presence and growing in awareness that living for personal comfort has dire consequences.

It’s also important for me to clarify that India isn’t the only place where evil is present. India didn’t shred my heart because it is particularly sin ridden and broken. It just happened to be the place for God’s appointed Shredding for me. Shadows fall in every country on every continent. Shadows darken hearts and minds of people from every nation and tribe and language. Shadows gather where oppression and injustice of every form rule. There is not a place on earth that isn’t plagued by sin and darkness, brokenness and injustice. This is why you do not need to physically go somewhere to experience a Shredding.