discomforting comfort

A strange confluence, perhaps:

If I had to guess, I think I'd say most people take up spiritual efforts in a search for what will reprieve and relieve. Something hurts, something is uncertain, something is out of kilter and there is a longing to correct matters ... with luck, for the better.

Enter Buddhism or Hinduism or Islam or Christianity or Judaism or the Cult of the Spaghetti Monster...a place that seems to promise comfort and relief.

And yet, once having entered a place of comforting promise, what good is it if it doesn't knock you on your ass? What substance of understanding does a purely comforting realm provide? Doesn't it become a jail cell if it does not rip you to shreds? Is a "good and faithful servant" really a good and faithful servant?

Seeking spiritual comfort strikes me as fine, a good starting point.

But finding and holding it strikes me as lazy/flimsy at best and cruel at worst.