Novelty v. Comfort

The paradox of human desire is highlighted in move month for me.

I say this as someone who grew up in language school city (where friends were always coming and going), someone who thought the worst thing in the world was being left all the time. And I say this as someone who now moves every two years (give or take a year), someone who finds herself thinking that the best thing in the world would be to stay in one place for a while and explore the idea of having a long term home.

The thing is, like most of us, I love the thrill of the exciting and new. There’s something shiny and fascinating about new things (fresh with no mistakes—yet!). This is why it’s so much fun to see the new house and go for runs on a new base and check out a new library. Everything is still clean. The girls haven’t nail polished their walls yet. The boys haven’t broken their closet door. The dog hasn’t barfed on the carpet.

The possibilities seem endless. You can create anything, be anything, explore everything!

At the same time, I see in myself a deep craving for the familiar and comfortable. I want to be where people know me. I want to be where I know how to get from point A to point B without having to use my GPS. I want to be in a place with routines. And all the newness (that is so thrilling) is exhausting. I find myself longing for a forever home, a place where there are no goodbyes, where I am known and loved, where there is buffer and a safety net.

There is no safety net with newness.

And therein lies the paradox (sorry I said “therein”).

This is where we sit in our world: in the discomfort between the excitement of the new and the desperate need for the familiar. Because it’s hard to have both. Really, we can’t have both. Once this base (and home and library and community, etc) get worn in long enough to be comfortable and safe, it will no longer be new and exciting. And when we move on to the next new and exciting thing, there will be risk and nerves and exhaustion. It will not be comfortable or safe.

These are two realities that cannot exist simultaneously.

As I thought about these things while running along new-to-me desert pathways and rearranging furniture for the new house in my head, I was reminded of Lamentations 3:22-23.

The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

In a world where we are either frantically pursuing the new and exciting or desperate to maintain our status quo of comfort, God gives us both the new and the never changing. His love for us never ceases, never runs out, never alters. It’s a constant in a world where almost everything else changes.

But look: side by side with his permanent love, his mercies are new every morning. They are fresh and exciting with each sunrise. They are the unexpected breath of fresh air that exhales joy.

This is why we need more than what we ourselves are. On our own, we struggle—caught between wanting the thrill of a fresh start and holding desperately to the safe and familiar. But in Christ, we can have both.

We have a God of ceaseless creativity, one who says, “See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland” (Isaiah 43:19). And we have a God of consistency and permanence, of whom it was said, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8).

And in a season where we are setting up a new home and meeting new people and starting new ventures, with all the excitement and nervousness that come alongside, that is a very comforting truth for me to remember.

In an imperfect world, God perfectly satisfies our paradoxical desires.