"God, make me so uncomfortable that I will do the very thing I fear"

A prayer for holy agitation, it rejects the narcotic of comfort and asks for a discomfort strong enough to break inertia. Fear is acknowledged, not denied; it is the gatekeeper at the entrance to growth. By asking for discomfort, the speaker invites a force that disrupts the easy stories we tell ourselves to stay small. Unease becomes an ally, a compass pointing toward what matters most, precisely because it scares us.

Courage rarely feels like courage from the inside; it feels like trembling steps taken anyway. Comfort often masquerades as safety, but it can also be stagnation, the quiet place where dreams go to sleep. The plea seeks a grace that refuses complacency, a divine nudge that turns avoidance into motion. It reframes discomfort as medicine, bitter, necessary, and ultimately healing, rather than punishment. The request is not for fear to vanish, but for the will to act to become stronger than the fear.

There’s also a moral dimension: the conflicts that shape a just life almost always require stepping into risk, speaking when silence is simpler, showing up where absence is safer, loving where indifference would hurt less. Ruby Dee, an artist and activist, knew the cost of comfort in times demanding courage. The line becomes a compact with conscience: may the pressure of what is right outweigh the ease of what is familiar. Discomfort here is not chaos; it is purposeful agitation, like the pain of muscles being strengthened.

Psychologically, the prayer mirrors exposure: doing the feared thing to teach the body and mind that catastrophe is not inevitable. Spiritually, it surrenders control, trusting that being unsettled can be a form of guidance. Not every fear should be ignored, discernment matters, but many fears are thresholds, not stop signs. Better to be shaken into action than soothed into regret, to let discomfort midwife a braver, truer life.