Pulled Muscles

My doctrinal muscles have been experiencing a lot of stretching lately, and frankly, I'm rather sore, discouraged with my progress, and ready to quit working out.

Our church is currently redefining our mission as a body and as individual believers, focusing on the redemptive work of God through Jesus and His assignment to His followers to carry on that work until He returns. The whole idea of living a life glorifying to God and going and making disciples is nothing new to me: I grew up in the church. But I've gotten really comfortable in my definition of what these things entail and am starting to wonder if they really revolve around making myself comfortable rather than pleasing the Lord.

I am very comfortable being a homemaker and only setting foot off my property twice a week for Sunday morning worship and a very busy errand day. I've been patting myself on the back for fulfilling God's call to be "busy at home" and "looking to the ways of my household." But what I'm starting to see is that this, in part, is an excuse to avoid part of my calling as a believer. While it appears godly on the outside, truthfully I'd rather not be bothered with my neighbors, or the check-out girl, or the library volunteer. I don't see them as people in need of kindness and grace, let alone the gospel. Instead of seeing myself as a minister of God's good news to a dying world, I've sought to run from its sinfulness, hiding within the walls of my self-sustaining Christian culture with its own music, kids' clubs, exercise groups, and coffee houses. I'm starting to wonder if something is wrong with this picture. And that is very uncomfortable.