The idol of comfort is trusting in the stability and security of the life you've built more than you trust in God. It doesn't announce itself as an idol because it looks like a good life. Same church, same community, same job, same routines. What's wrong with that? The problem surfaces slowly: the calendar too full to breathe, the soul craving space that never comes, a restlessness you can't quite name. I thought I was happy. Underneath the happiness, my soul was suffocating. When God stripped it away in two weeks with a move to Alaska, it exposed what I'd been standing on. The disorientation was real. The disorientation was the point. Numbers 14: the Israelites had left Egypt in obedience, followed God's leading, done the right things. And when they arrived at the edge of what God had for them and found it hard, they wanted to go back. The comfort of what they knew, even in bondage, felt safer than the uncertainty of what God was offering. That pull is real. I felt it too.
Twenty years in the same place. Same church, same community, same friends, same job. I thought I was happy. I thought I was comfortable. My soul was suffocating and I didn't know it. The signal was the calendar: checking it an hour a day trying to fit everything in, craving a day with nothing on it, and my life giving me more and more. A prayer walked out of a breakfast place one November morning that I wasn't praying for immediately: God, all I want are more days like this one. I was thinking years from now. He answered in two weeks.
When God stripped the comfort away, it was total. No job, no income, no church, no community, no plan, no routine. A house that smelled like cat pee. Josh with a torn bicep. And the specific temptation that follows every Red Sea moment: wouldn't it be better to go back? Numbers 14 records the Israelites standing at the edge of the promised land saying they'd rather return to Egypt. I recognized that impulse in myself. The hard part of obedience isn't the initial yes. It's staying when it's harder than you expected and the comfort you left starts to look good again. What God was doing in the stripping was exposing what I had actually been standing on. It was comfort. And he wanted me standing on him.
- Comfort can become an idol without looking like one. It just looks like stability and a good life. The signal is often not a crisis but a slow suffocation: the calendar too full, the soul craving space, a vague restlessness that's easy to dismiss.
- Growth always requires discomfort. The seasons that fundamentally changed who I am were the uncomfortable ones. The easy seasons produced maintenance. The hard ones produced transformation.
- When God calls you out of your comfort and into something new, the obedience doesn't guarantee an easy landing. You leave Egypt and you find yourself at the Red Sea. That's not evidence you got it wrong. That's the test of whether you'll trust him through it.
- Numbers 14: the Israelites stood at the border of the promised land and said wouldn't it be better to go back to Egypt? The impulse to return to comfort when the wilderness gets hard is real and understandable. And it's also the thing that keeps you from what God has for you.
- God strips the comfort away to expose the foundation. Whatever you were standing on becomes visible when it's removed. I discovered I had been standing on comfort, community, reputation, and routine, not on him.
- A simple prayer, specific and small, answered faster than expected: more days like this one. God heard it. Two weeks later I was in Alaska. I wasn't praying for the specific answer I received, but I was praying for the right thing.
- The life that emerges on the other side looks different because the habits, the mindsets, and the routines are different. Not because you moved. But because God worked on you through the moving.
What is the idol of comfort and how does it quietly take over?
The idol of comfort forms over time and doesn't look like a problem while it's forming. It looks like a stable life. Same church, same community, same friends, same role. These are good things. And none of them became the idol by being bad. They became the idol by becoming what I was trusting.
The signal I describe is subtle. Not a crisis. Not a failure. Just a calendar checked so many times a day that it was driving me crazy, a soul craving a day with nothing on it that never came, and a vague sense of suffocation I couldn't name clearly. I thought I was happy. I was, in some ways. But underneath the happiness, something was starving.
My soul was actually desperate for a change. I just wasn't aware of it at the time. It took a lot longer for my mind to get there. I was filling every slot, saying yes to things, building up exactly the kind of overcommitted life I now desperately wanted out of. And I'd built it myself, one yes at a time.
My soul was actually desperate for a change. I just wasn't aware of it at the time. It took a lot longer for my mind to get there, for me to be aware of how suffocated I was actually feeling.
Amy Dardis, Episode 29What do you do when you've obeyed God and it's harder than you expected?
Numbers 14 is the passage I return to for this. The Israelites have done the right things. They left Egypt in obedience. God was clearly with them. And they arrive at the edge of what he has for them, look at what's in front of them, and say: wouldn't it be better to go back to Egypt? Let's choose a new leader and return.
This is the specific temptation after obedience leads somewhere hard. It's not doubting whether God is real. It's the much more practical question: was this actually his plan? Surely if this were his will, it would be easier.
My first months in Alaska looked exactly like this. The house was a mess. Josh was injured. No income was coming in. No community had formed yet. And the thought came: I made a mistake. I should go back and get a job. I should move back to what I know. This is clearly not working.
God's response in those moments, as in Numbers, is not that the difficulty means you got it wrong. The difficulty is specifically where he wants to meet you. He wants to show you what he can do that you couldn't do for yourself. He wants to provide in the ways that only become possible when your own resources have run out.
How do you actually build a different life when you keep sliding back into old patterns?
I moved to Alaska, to a completely new place with no existing structure, no old routines, no obligations, and within weeks I was reverting to exactly the same habits I'd had in Montana. Same grinding, same busyness, same anxious productivity. Moving doesn't change you. Only God does.
What I prayed for as we were packing was not that the place would be different. It was that we would be different. I wanted new habits, new mindsets, new rhythms. I knew I'd built my old life myself, one yes at a time, and I knew I had the capacity to rebuild it exactly the same way in a new location if nothing internal changed.
The stripping God does in hard seasons is specifically for this purpose. It removes the structure you were relying on so that the internal stuff has to be addressed. When there's no community to show up to, no church calendar to follow, no work schedule to structure the day, what's actually in you is what you have.
Resources mentioned
- Ep 28 — The Idol of Money — Previous episode: scarcity mindset and withheld generosity
- Ep 30 — The Idol of Fear — Final episode in the series: when fear replaces hope
- Ep 19 — How to Know When God Is Preparing You for a New Season — The signs Amy noticed before the Alaska move
Full transcript
I'm your host, Amy Dardis. And in today's episode, we are continuing on in our series on idols and entrepreneurship and business. And today we are diving into the idol of comfort. An idol is an object or a concept that we give a higher priority than God. It's anything we rely on for blessing, help, or guidance instead of God. Anything that consumes our heart, thoughts, or devotion more than God. And it's any good thing or bad thing that we elevate to a position of more power, more prominence, more influence in our life over God. And the question always comes back to where is our hope? Is it in God? Or in this case, is it in our comfort and our security?
Comfort is a hard one because it's something I think we all crave. I know I certainly desire it. I want it. I seek it out. I want things to be comfortable, safe, predictable. Growth always requires discomfort. And as much as I want growth and I want to grow, I don't always like the process of growing. I don't like the process of being uncomfortable, of being stretched. And it's always easier and safer to hold on to what we know up until a point. Up until the pain of not growing, the pain of staying the same, is actually more painful than actually growing.
For me, I've had two very prominent, incredibly difficult seasons. And then the other seasons have all had their own varying degrees of discomfort. Some of them just easier to get through than others. But it's the ones where I was the most uncomfortable, those are the ones that fundamentally changed who I am. They fundamentally changed my life. They fundamentally changed my faith in God.
Over the last five years, I had worked as a full-time employee for an organization that I loved. I truly loved working there and I grew in so many different ways. And I was challenged and uncomfortable in so many ways. So I wasn't in a season that was just like easy or coasting. But it didn't wreck me the way the next season did. But in summer of 2023, I knew that God was starting to call me into something new. And you know, it took 18 months of God preparing my heart and planting some things and shifting some things and just working in me. And I wrestled for a lot of it. I resisted in the beginning. And then I surrendered a little bit more, resisted, surrendered, resisted, surrendered. And basically, God was calling me into starting this new business. He was calling me to start this new brand. But I wanted to stay where I was.
The first time I had left the corporate world and gone into entrepreneurship, I knew that God was calling me into it. Like without a doubt, full peace, full affirmation. But my hope is always that when God calls us to something, he's just going to bless it, he's going to open doors, and it's just going to be so good and so blessed. And both times God has called me out of the corporate world and into the entrepreneurship world, it has been the hardest thing in my life. Like both times. You would think that after being in business for 15 years, the second time around wouldn't be nearly as painful or as hard. But it was. And both times it was like stepping into this incredibly difficult season that just wrecks me. It just strips everything away.
I was resisting this calling because I didn't want to have what had happened before happen again. I wanted it to be more comfortable, more safe, less risky. I really wanted to build it on the side, take my time, work full-time, do my job, and then slowly build what I needed to build on the side because that made sense, that was predictable, that was responsible, and that's really what I tried to do. But that is not what God wanted. That is not what he was asking.
Because the truth was: the comfort in the routine, everything that I had known, and not just as an employee, but just my life. I'd been in the same place for 20 years, been a part of the same church, the same community for 20 years. There was not a lot of new going on. And my soul was actually desperate for a change. I just wasn't aware of it at the time. It took a lot longer for my mind to get there, for me to be aware of how suffocated I was actually feeling. I thought that things were good, I thought I was comfortable, and I honestly thought that I was happy. And to an extent I was. But my calendar was just driving me crazy. I mean, I was checking my calendar probably an hour every day. And my soul was desperately craving peace and space.
And a couple of days opened up in early November of 2024, right before we moved to Alaska. The kids were at school and my husband and I both had two days clear. We just hung out. We went to the gym, we went to breakfast, we played some board games, like we just spent time together, and they were just wonderful days. And I remember leaving, walking out of the breakfast place towards the car, this beautiful sunny November day. I just remember stopping in this moment and just praying: God, all I want are more days like these. It was just a cry of my heart. This is what I want. And in my head I'm thinking: maybe in a year, maybe five years from now. Like it wasn't anything I was praying for immediately. It was just a recognition that this is what I wanted.
And two weeks later, we made the decision to move to Alaska, and two weeks after that, we were actually in Alaska. And kicked off the last year of having more days like that. Having so many days on my calendar with nothing on the schedule. Because we went to this brand new place where we didn't know anyone, we weren't committed to anything. And it has been a huge blessing. That was just one prayer that I prayed that I really didn't expect God to answer for a very long time, and he answered it so quickly.
But prior to that, here I was, my soul desperate for this change, realizing God was calling me to something new, but trying to do it responsibly and stay comfortable and stay within my comfort zone. But here he goes and he uproots us completely. Not only did I not have the comfortable job and benefits and security, but we didn't have family, we didn't have our church, we didn't have community, we didn't have a place that we knew. Like he pulled us out of everything that we knew, everything that was comfortable. And he put us into a brand new place where we just completely had to rely on God for everything.
We landed in Alaska around midnight, got to our Airbnb at 2 a.m. on December 8th, got up that first morning in Alaska, just in shock, totally surreal, totally exhausted. We went to breakfast at the Noisy Goose in Palmer, Alaska. And this guy turns to me, hands me a card, and says, I feel like I'm supposed to give this to you. And I look down and it's an invite card to a church. And then as we're driving to look at houses a few days later, I happen to look out the window at exactly the right moment, and there is this church that the guy had invited us to. In a season of incredible uncertainty, knowing nothing, having no plan, no direction or compass or anything, here God is anchoring us. Directing our steps. And we end up going to this church. We end up buying a house right up the street from the church.
And then so we buy this house, and there's cat pee, and there's mice poop in the garage and in the walls, and then Josh tears his bicep, and we're trying to launch this business, and my kids want to sign up and do things, and just nothing about our life feels normal, nothing feels certain, nothing feels predictable. There's no routine, everything is uprooted, everything is just turned upside down, and I find myself in this position of absolutely having to a hundred percent rely on God for everything. And somehow that feels like failing. It feels like I'm not doing the right things. Because in this world, we think that if we work hard enough, plan effectively, make really good decisions, then everything will work out and it will be comfortable.
But when God calls you out of those things and he uproots your life and he asks you to step out of the boat and he calls you out of Egypt, and you're sure that he called you out, and you're sure that he's bringing you to a new place, and you're going to take care of you, and you finally leave, and it's like oh my gosh, God's amazing. And then you get to the Red Sea, and there's a big huge sea in front of you, and there is this Egyptian army coming towards you. So you're stuck in the middle. That is kind of what my life felt like.
And Numbers 14 mentions this. The Israelites had left Egypt, and they're in this position, and they're like: why is the Lord bringing us to this land only to let us fall by the sword? Our wives and children will be taken as plunder. Wouldn't it be better for us to go back to Egypt? And they said to each other: we should choose a leader and go back to Egypt. So we have all of our comfort uprooted, all of our security uprooted. And then it's easy to be like: I should just go back and get a job. I should just go move back to what I know. Like this is really hard, it feels like nothing is working out, I must be doing something wrong.
Instead, God is like: no, you are right where I want you. I want you to trust me. I want to meet you in this place. I want to show you my grace. I want you to see that I'm going to provide for you daily in ways you would have never expected or never asked or never imagined. Because my plan for you is better. And just because this is hard, just because this is uncomfortable, doesn't mean that anything is wrong. That's this mindset we get in: if things are hard, if things aren't working out, then it's wrong. Instead of realizing that God works all things for our good, and what the enemy meant for evil, God uses it for our good.
And in this process, I'm oh man, I'm a wreck. Just crying every day, crying in joy, crying in desperation, crying out. But what God's doing is stripping away all of these habits and mindsets and things I had built up as security and comfort where I thought I was good, I thought I trusted God, I thought I was pursuing him. But as he strips these things away, it's really exposing me. What do I really believe? Where is my foundation? What am I standing on? And I realized: wow, I was standing on a lot of comfort. I was relying on a lot of comfort, safety, security. And God's asking me to lay all that down and to trust him fully.
And I look back on this past year, and man, I'm so thankful. I'm thankful for the move. I would have never planned it, never picked it, never gone after it. If he told me what was going to happen, I would have said no. Same way as the first time he called me into entrepreneurship. And it was so hard. But I look at all the fruit that came out of that. And man, I would have never chosen that for myself, but it's been so good, and I'm so grateful for it.
And it goes back to this prayer: walking out of that breakfast place and saying, I just want more days like these. Only for that to be something real and lived out and sustainable. I had created my own monster before. Those were my choices, my decisions. I was the one who put things on my calendar. I was the one who said yes to things. And so here I am, like living a different life. Our family is different. The way we spend time together is different. The way we engage with each other, the way we see God together, it's different. God knows our heart. He knows what he created us for. He knows the plans and the purpose he has for our life. And through it all, he's walking us through that, helping us get there. And it's just continually reminding me that he has to be the one who leads it, he has to be the most important thing in my life. So that's all I have for you today. As always, you can learn more at clearauthenticbrands.com. I will see you next time.