Comfort is Cowardice

Truth comes at a cost. Where the enemies of Christ exist, the pressure that accompanies righteousness is unavoidable. Stories of Christians who defied the world and suffered for the truth are eagerly celebrated, yet the admiration is often little more than a safe homage to virtue, without intent to imitate it. Reformers are praised from the pulpit, but few would dare to challenge today’s popes or petty tyrants. Martyrs are extolled, but few would willingly step into the line of fire. The prophets are proclaimed, but their posture and voice are rarely assumed in cultures quick to cast stones at the faintest offense. Some version if Christ is preached, while many work hard to never have to carry a cross and follow Him through discomfort.

Pressure is often a revealer of pretense. It often unmasks the preference for the appearance of righteousness over its substance. It often exposes the idolatry of well-curated reputations and the appeasements they demand. It often discloses a commitment to mere survival, even at the expense of faithfulness. It often unmasks incompetence and uncovers the recesses of questionable character. It often lays bare true convictions, reveals vain thoughts and affections, and strips away the fragile disguises of unbelief.

Compromise often takes root in the fine margins. It occurs when greatness is quietly traded for mere goodness, when detail is sacrificed for function, and quality surrendered to convenience. Compromise creeps in when risk is abandoned for the sake of survival, when importance is eclipsed by urgency, and when beauty is cheapened into mere attraction. It deepens when freedom is recast as license and fruitfulness is reduced to productivity. Pressure is often the culprit—subtle in its onset, insidious in its logic, and incremental in its effect.

Framed in this way, many are tempted to demonize pressure and flee from it, when instead it ought to be received as a God-given instrument of sanctification and dominion. The task is not to evade pressure for fear of what it may reveal, but to embrace it for what it is designed to form. Lies delight in fear, bondage, and death; truth delights in freedom, courage, and fruitfulness. Both may wield pressure, yet they diverge utterly in orientation and purpose. The light of truth may expose infirmities, but in Christ, such exposure need not end in despair. It calls rather for faith—faith that His radiance is transformative in and through His people. In Christ’s economy, pressure is the forge in which growth and flourishing are wrought. What God’s enemies intend for evil, God purposes for good.

When the avoidance of hardship becomes a guiding principle, such individuals are rendered powerless to effect meaningful change in the world.

An often overlooked element of Christian fidelity is the necessity of discipleship. Education, after all, is one of its most potent forms. The strength to withstand pressure and to grow through it requires the exercise of knowledge, wisdom, and courage. Discipleship itself is a forge, where pressure is applied not destructively but lovingly, to shape both character and competence. It must be rigorous and robust if believers are to navigate a treacherous world with faithful courage. At its best, discipleship produces discipline—the kind that brings order to every sphere of life.

Most things worth doing demand hardship. Those who embrace this truth, undaunted by difficulty, are far more likely to be fruitful—driven by what they can build rather than by the fear of what might collapse. The irony for those who pursue ease is that they quickly become governed by the very fear of struggle they sought to avoid. Enslaved to pleasure and allergic to discomfort, they are reduced to perpetual consumers, incapable of fruitfulness.

Take, for example, the conditions prospective students place on academic institutions—where the chief concern is how much they can consume in amenities and perks, only to continue consuming even more after graduation. In this context, students are dehumanized, reduced to spoon-fed cogs in an industrial machine. But economies are not built on mere consumers. Modern academia in many ways sows this culture of consumerism which is ultimately a culture of death. 

Glory, by contrast, belongs to those who take risks, who are committed to building, who possess grit, who cultivate resilience, and who know that glory waits only on the far side of hardship.

Few are ready for this gauntlet, yet through rigorous instruction, mentorship, study, prayer, and meditation, character is steadily forged. At NSA, sin is confronted and repented, lies are exposed and dismantled, laziness and apathy are uprooted, cowardice is ridiculed, retreat is shamed, weakness is not tolerated, and immaturity is crushed.

It is worth noting that some fear the hardship of working with their hands or engaging in physically demanding labor, confining themselves instead to ivory towers where comfort is found in abstraction and novelty. Others fear the rigors of study, of applying the mind to sustained thought and focus. When the avoidance of hardship becomes a guiding principle, such individuals are rendered powerless to effect meaningful change in the world. Total submission to the Lordship of Christ, by contrast, requires the whole of life to be devoted to excellence, holiness, and fruitfulness. Mind and body alike belong to Christ alone.

New Saint Andrews College serves as a forge of cultural leadership, preparing students to shape society while living faithfully under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Cultural leadership inevitably invites external pressure—critique, slander, ridicule, and every manner of sabotage. Few are ready for this gauntlet, yet through rigorous instruction, mentorship, study, prayer, and meditation, character is steadily forged. At NSA, sin is confronted and repented, lies are exposed and dismantled, laziness and apathy are uprooted, cowardice is ridiculed, retreat is shamed, weakness is not tolerated, and immaturity is crushed.

The goal of New Saint Andrews College is not to produce well-decorated nerds, but leaders who grasp the summons to exercise dominion over the earth, disciple the nations, and shape culture. This education is not for the soft or faint-hearted. It is not for those who choose to cower or take the easy path. It is for those who understand their identity in Christ and are determined to live faithfully by it.