Comforts

I'm in Texas at the moment, staying right next door to Comfort.  They call themselves "an antique town", with antique stores on every corner and shops in-between designed to make a life worth staying home for.  If simple things could produce nostalgia, happiness, and, yes, comfort, they'd be making bank.  And, of course, they are.

As a Christian woman I live with a lot of guilt about my comforts.  Whether it's chocolate or Netflix, there is a niggling suspicion that I shouldn't be using these to make myself feel better-- that's what God is supposed to be for.  Jesus said He would send us The Comforter, and He did!  So.... why am I left feeling that on most days in this way the Holy Spirit doesn't "work"?

Let me draw a distinction in self-defense.  When the chips are down and the world has fallen apart and it's three in the morning and my soul is bleeding, God is the only true comfort and I run to Him every time.  It's the less cataclysmic moments that cause me trouble-- like when I'm dis-regulated, grumpy, tired, annoyed, disappointed.  It's as if these "minor troubles" don't warrant a trip all the way into the throne room.  It's so far!  It's so much work to get myself into the proper brain space for communicating with The God of the Universe.  It's so much easier to "grab a snickers bar" and rely on those splendid chemicals and endorphins that same God gave us which equalize and restore us to a state of comfort.  

Here's what I'm not saying: don't eat when you're hungry-- go to Jesus!  Don't nap when you're tired-- go to Jesus!  Don't grieve when you're disappointed-- go to Jesus!  (And I'm certainly not advocating eating a snickers bar!)  While Jesus always ministers to us whenever we come to Him, He also understands the human body and that it has been made to need food and rest and tears.  He employed all of those things Himself and holds no guilt over our heads for doing the same.

Here's what I am saying: Why is it, in so many every-day moments, that we are more comforted by Doctor Who than by the Real Lord of All Time?  Why is chocolate-dipped biscotti more comforting than The Bread of Life?  Why is exercise (reportedly) more comforting than walking with our only perfect Dad?

Do you feel this?!  I have not written a rhetorical post here-- sound off for me.  Where has God met you on this?