When God Is in It: The Difference Between His Presence and Our Comfort

By Paul Watson

It’s funny how often we use comfort as a metric for God’s will. We say things like, “If God is in it, the doors will open,” or “If it’s hard, maybe it’s not the right timing,” as if the Almighty funnels His guidance through ease and convenience.

But lately, God has been waking me up in the early hours of the morning — far earlier than I’d like — to remind me of something very different. Not with booming revelations, but with gentle, persistent instruction. And one night, He took me back to the story of Moses.

You remember the moment. Moses looks at God and says:

“If You don’t go with us, then don’t send us.”

That line has always stirred something in me, but this time God pressed it deeper. Because when you actually look at Moses’ life, God did go with him — and it was still unbelievably hard.

Plagues. Desert wandering. Rebellion. Korah’s uprising. His own siblings turning against him. Israel complaining day and night.

And in the end?

Moses doesn’t even enter the Promised Land.

If Moses had used American Christian metrics, he might have assumed God wasn’t in it at all.

But God was. Fully.

And that’s when the Lord spoke something to me I wasn’t expecting:

“My presence and My instruction — not your comfort — are the indicators that I am with you.”That hit me like a hammer.

We’ve built a “gospel of comfort” in so many ways. We assume God’s will glides smoothly. That open doors mean yes. That difficulty means no. That success means blessing. That struggle means pause.

But Scripture doesn’t back that.

God told Moses, “I will be with you.”

And being with Moses didn’t remove the hardship — it carried him through it.

When God Speaks, Even the Hard Road Is the Right Road

The Lord wasn’t reminding me of Moses for nostalgia’s sake. He was shaping my lens for the season ahead — for the call He gave us back at Memorial Day to go “all in.”

And the truth is, obedience doesn’t always look like comfort. Sometimes it feels like waking up at 2 a.m. with your mind racing and your heart wrestling and your body tired. Sometimes it looks like giving everything you have with no glamour to show for it.

But if God is instructing you — if His Word is alive in your heart, if His stories are stirring your soul, if His presence is pressing you forward — then He is in it, even when everything else is shaking.

In fact, the only time to fear is when God goes silent.

Instruction is presence.

Presence is guidance.

Guidance is love.

The Chosen, Lazarus, and Why Suffering Still Shapes Us

One night when I couldn’t sleep, I found myself watching scenes from The Chosen. First, the moment when Jesus calls Peter onto the water. Peter is terrified, overwhelmed, caught between faith and fear. And Jesus says something that echoes through Scripture whether the show dramatizes it or not:

“I allow you to go through these things to strengthen your faith.”

Then I watched the scene with Lazarus — after Jesus raises him, Jesus apologizes for what Lazarus had to endure. And Lazarus simply looks at Him and says:

“I trust You.”

That line wrecked me.

If Lazarus can look at Jesus — the One who waited long enough for him to die — and say, “I trust You,” then maybe our own suffering isn’t punishment or abandonment.

Maybe it’s formation.

Maybe it’s love.

And maybe, just maybe, the very thing we think is breaking us is the thing God is using to prepare us.

Living in the Advent Tension

This is why I love Advent. Not because of lights or music or nostalgia. But because Advent is about tension — the tension of waiting for God’s promises to be fulfilled.

Israel waited 400 years in silence after the prophets. The first episode of The Chosen captures that tension so well — the aching question: “When is God going to speak again?”

And then He does.

But here’s the part we forget:

Jesus’ first coming wasn’t the end of the story. It was the beginning of the adventure.

We are still living in the tension — longing for His return while working to prepare the world for it.

Just like John the Baptist made straight the path for Jesus’ first coming, we prepare the path for His second.

And we do that by obeying His commands:

Love God. Love your neighbor. Make disciples of all nations. Baptize them. Teach them to obey everything He commanded. That is the work that keeps hope alive.

When Hardship is Hope

On the first week of Advent, the theme is hope.

But biblical hope isn’t optimism.

It isn’t positive thinking.

It isn’t the absence of difficulty.

Biblical hope says:

“My God is with me in the middle of the valley, and that is enough.”

And the more I watch our prison brothers grow, the more I see our team press into obedience, the more I feel God shaping and challenging me personally, the more I’m convinced:

Hope is not found by escaping hardship.

Hope is found by discovering God’s presence inside it.

The Israelites found hope in the silence.

The disciples found hope in the storm.

Lazarus found hope in the grave.

And we find hope when God speaks — even in the middle of difficulty — because His voice means He is near.

So Here Is the Question Advent Raises for All of Us:

Are we chasing God’s comfort… or God’s presence?

Because you can’t have both.

But His presence is far better.

And if He is still instructing you — through His Word, through the Spirit, through the testimonies of the saints — then take heart.

He is with you.

He hasn’t left you.

And He will carry you through whatever comes next.

This is our hope.

This is Advent.

This is the God who is with us.