Stepping Out of Our Comfort Zone

What a phrase! …and it sounds so uncomfortable! But, when I think for a minute, it shouldn’t be uncomfortable. If when, where, and how I am stepping is when, where and how God wants me, then why the lack of comfort? As a Christ follower, the more accurate application of the phrase could be that when I’m moving somewhere in life I shouldn’t be, then I’m out of my comfort zone.

…for the Joy of the Lord is your strength…Nehemiah 8:10

I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength…Philippians 4:13

They’re not just bumper sticker slogans, I know. And as I am sitting in the garden this morning, it is peaceful and quiet. The doves are cooing and the sun is just rising and peeking thru the trees…I can see it shining at the other end of the path, so bright compared to everything else!

That’s our life, isn’t it? Sometimes shining brightly, other times we feel like we’re peeking thru the darkness and being the light for another.

As I’m still thinking on this comfort zone thing, it really seems that at times we can also make people around us uncomfortable, when we point out that we’re “stepping out of our comfort zone” to do something for them. When really, in my day, in what I do, the words I choose and how I act, He is right there…so? Should I not be bringing others closer to God? After all, He is the source of comfort.

 

God will take us plenty of places we might not have chosen, or even realized existed, but those steps can be joy-filled ~ celebrating His presence and power in the moment.

…where the Spirit of the Lord is present, there is freedom.

2 Corinthians 3:17b  GNT

THAT is…

~ freedom from fear and worry

~ freedom to live fully

~ freedom to trust Him in something new

~ freedom to breathe

It’s the life lived from God’s perspective, not our own. Like when I look at this gorgeous bloom on our royal palm. It just towers over everything! I wouldn’t choose to perch myself up there and I can think of all kinds of reasonable reasons that I shouldn’t be up there. I wonder how often we miss the beautiful views God has for us in life, all because we thought we were being reasonable!

The danger, the mis-step is when we define our own zone, choose our own steps and seek our own reasonable comfort. However, when “our comfort zone” is living and being with Christ in every moment…that is life, the steps we are called to walk joyously in. When The Comforter is Who defines our comfort zone, our steps are aligned and secured by Him…and that’s the zone to stay in!

All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is our merciful Father and the source of all comfort.  He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us.

2 Corinthians 1:3&4 GNT

Perspective

 

Each season seems to have a “something” that wants to get in the way. An obstacle or event that upsets our path. Looking back, things look clear, but inside that time, things can seem unclear, the problem bigger or higher to overcome than it really is.

Ephesians 3:18 says,

And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high and how deep His love is.

God’s Love is with us, covers us in all our seasons. It is higher and bigger than anything the evil one may throw in our way. Within a season, our Perspective Changer comes when we expand our view, beyond the obstacle and to the One who moves it. Our Father is the Season Changer, the One Who knows our every step and has set our path each day. We just need to expand our view till understanding comes into focus.  

Perspective, what a word! I’ve heard several people use this word lately, in a context I really didn’t understand. Soooo, to think it thru, here’s my peek at the word….

Perspective requires many openings, it is not walled off, or singular in origin. Perspective requires input opportunities, or else it is just opinion. Perspective implies a widened view of things, an understanding of the panorama life gives us.

So, for me….I see and live life from my point on the panorama, that is, my vantage point, my “perspective” of life…but perspective sees and allows for the existence of others.

Opinion, often times, has seen others, but deems them invalid and so dismisses them. When we seek God’s perspective, we are free to live from our vantage point ← that place He has placed us → and look for Him in the vantage points of others.

When Jesus asked, “Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear?” Mark 8:18, it wasn’t a physical question, but a faith question. When we live our lives “seeing” thru our own filters of experience, our vision is limited. We can be ruled and directed by pride and fears we are totally unaware of, because we choose not to look there.

Jesus was asking His disciples, and now us, to view life from a place of faith…to trust Him and His perspective.

And so, our perspectives are not right or wrong, they just “are” our points on the panorama of life intended to join together in one story.

Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives.

Galatians 5:25

Just As He Had Always Done...

So, I can’t get this verse out of my head…Sharing!

I think the story of Daniel and the lion’s den is a familiar one to many people, it’s in chapter 6 of Daniel, if ya want to refresh the details. In verse 10, tho’, just before Daniel is thrown in with the lions, this verse describes his response to the decree that was made…    

When Daniel learned that the order had been signed, he went home. In an upstairs room of his house there were windows that faced toward Jerusalem. There, just as he had always done, he knelt down at the open windows and prayed to God three times a day.

Daniel 6:10

Did you catch that? …He went home and prayed, “just as he had always done.” Daniel’s regular day consisted of prayer and he did not change that because a circumstance had changed or become difficult.

What a lesson this “space” thing is! (see previous post) How often does life throw us a curve and we dash off to “fix it”? Consistency in prayer, conversation with God is our only “fix”. A phrase comes to mind that we often use, or hear ~ “If God has allowed”  ~ this verse from Daniel gives me another perspective on that. How about, “if God planned” this or that to happen?

We seem to think our determining of good or bad situations is correct, but God has already determined

and said…

And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to His purpose for them.

Romans 8:28 ← Something Daniel already obviously knew. His habit, his regular routine was to pray, to talk to God three times a day. Set times, a set place “just as he had always done.”

I think Daniel’s example teaches us so many things….a few?

~ Life will happen and God has it all planned out. Our best pattern in life is to talk to God regularly, everyday!

~ And then, to trust God with every moment ←That’s not just a phrase, it is the practical application/response to communion with God.

~ Because, unless we are trusting, what is the point of prayer?

What I see in Daniel is a peace, an unwavering confidence in God to take care of every situation. In our days, American perspective, we tend to define good outcomes with financial success or our creature comforts, if those are satisfied, all is good…

But what about the lions?

Because they are there.

We stand among them everyday.

Circumstances, people, choices, so many things that could eat us alive and take us off the path God intends for our lives.

 
 Others are watching, just as King Darius was watching Daniel…Do they see us praising and pointing to God in all things, so they too, like the king, may come to know who God is?

That tis why we are here after all! To live as Christ did, to walk with our Lord and live in a way that others see the difference HE is in our days. Just as the king looking in the lion’s den, others should look at us and see our salvation story.

It is what prayer does, when we lean in and listen, trusting our Saviour’s promises, His Peace stands us among the lions in life, in order to point others to Christ…because life is not about the lions. They are just a muzzled prop to bring even kings to Christ. Our strength, our passions are found in prayer like Daniel’s

…just as he had always done, he knelt down at the open windows and prayed to God three times a day.

Daniel 6:10