Comfort zones are interesting things. I don't know about anyone else, but I tend to love them. They symbolize security. They provide this little cocoon of safety and familiarity. When I'm in them I have this protected feeling like nothing can really truly hurt me as long as I stay in their familiar embrace. Of course the thing I've come to realize is that comfort zones while they definitely have their good points and the times they are necessary, to truly grow you have to step outside of them at some point. I mean what happens if a catapiller decides hanging out in that cocoon is way better than ever coming out of it. When it comes out it becomes vulnerable to any number of dangers. Outside of the cocoon there are birds, spider webs and little kids with science projects to complete! Inside the comfort zone those threats while still there seem less likely. It's like in our comfort zone we can close our eyes like a toddler and insist that none of those dangers can see us. Of course as long as the catapiller stays in it's cocoon it never has the opportunity to see what it's full potential is, what a beautiful butterfly it can become. If the eagle's offspring insists on hanging out in the nest it will never discover how high it is truly capable of soaring. So what do we miss when we insist that our comfort zone is far enough?
Don't get me wrong. As I mentioned before comfort zones can be great things, they can help build some confidence in areas, they can be necessary for emotional and even spiritual healing, but eventually if we are ever to achieve the vision God has of what he wants us to become we will have to step out of the comfort zone. It doesn't require much faith to stay there since we pretty much think we know how life will go if we do so, the faith comes when you follow the call that leads you out of that familiarity, the call that encourages you to get out of the boat in the middle of a storm and walk on the water. To me Peter is an awesome example of what you can experience if you are willing to consider stepping out of your comfort zone. I think we often tend to think of the "where did your faith go" aspect of Peter's walk on the water while the other side to it is Peter walked on the water! Outside of Jesus who else in the history of mankind has managed that? Does that mean the dangers and pitfalls cease to exist? No, but realistically they are there even when we stay in our comfort zones so why not find what the true potential God has for us really is?
Monday, February 21, 2011
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Cleaniness Might Be Next to Godliness, but Organization Would Seem to be the Path There....
I have come to a realization about myself recently thanks to a friend's personal observation. After a Facebook post stating my latest project of organizing and clearing out with her response that she does the same thing when she needs to think, I discovered so do I!! Thanks to her personal observation I have recognized a pattern to my cleaning schedule! When I'm fairly content with where things are not really challenged to think or maybe I'm just plain feeling sorry for myself, my apartment shows it!! I suppose I should be thankful God sends life changing events to turn my life upside down every so often so the place gets a good cleaning!
This year for some reason I decided to evalute the "stuff" I was holding onto early in the year, but certainly didn't expect the mass clearing I've managed so far! Honestly even at this point I can't figure out how or why I decided to "clear out" some of the things I've parted with, but I know that it was time to let go of it. For anyone who knows me they will understand that books are my obsession! Growing up books were my escape from reality. They were a way for me to travel to exotic locations and different eras of history and live a life in my mind I only dreamed about. One of my favorite stories to illustrate the importance of that particular possession is the fact that by the time I was 13 I had amassed a collection in the thousands that I did not want to part with upon which my Dad insisted some had to go. Talk about traumatic!! If I remember right I was livid and took quite a while to get over it. That said my Dad would be very proud of me today since while I will always value my books, I have found they aren't necessary to my living and breathing.
Of course it's not necessarily that the possessions are wrong, but I had to evaluate why I was holding onto them which resulted in the realization that in the big picture they aren't necessary to my happiness. They take up space in my life that while I didn't recognize it right away has been replaced by other more important things such as relationships, the nieces and nephews I've "adopted", the friends who have become family. Of course once you find you can part with the possessions you value the most everything else is a discovery in how free you can really become as you stop letting those things rule your life and let God fill it with other things a little more each day. Now does that mean that there will never be days that the apartment looks less than it's best. Of course not! I fully expect that I will be able to organize and re-organize and re-re-organize many times over the coming years, but the way I look at it now is that if all of that organizing means God's making me think, well I'll just keep at it!
This year for some reason I decided to evalute the "stuff" I was holding onto early in the year, but certainly didn't expect the mass clearing I've managed so far! Honestly even at this point I can't figure out how or why I decided to "clear out" some of the things I've parted with, but I know that it was time to let go of it. For anyone who knows me they will understand that books are my obsession! Growing up books were my escape from reality. They were a way for me to travel to exotic locations and different eras of history and live a life in my mind I only dreamed about. One of my favorite stories to illustrate the importance of that particular possession is the fact that by the time I was 13 I had amassed a collection in the thousands that I did not want to part with upon which my Dad insisted some had to go. Talk about traumatic!! If I remember right I was livid and took quite a while to get over it. That said my Dad would be very proud of me today since while I will always value my books, I have found they aren't necessary to my living and breathing.
Of course it's not necessarily that the possessions are wrong, but I had to evaluate why I was holding onto them which resulted in the realization that in the big picture they aren't necessary to my happiness. They take up space in my life that while I didn't recognize it right away has been replaced by other more important things such as relationships, the nieces and nephews I've "adopted", the friends who have become family. Of course once you find you can part with the possessions you value the most everything else is a discovery in how free you can really become as you stop letting those things rule your life and let God fill it with other things a little more each day. Now does that mean that there will never be days that the apartment looks less than it's best. Of course not! I fully expect that I will be able to organize and re-organize and re-re-organize many times over the coming years, but the way I look at it now is that if all of that organizing means God's making me think, well I'll just keep at it!
Friday, January 21, 2011
The Present Future
Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not. Jeremiah 33:3 (KJV)
You know it's funny how so caught up in life we can get that we never think to stop and actually think about how much God cares about our everyday existence. I mean think about it He cares so much that while we are so busy trying to work our way through all of the "small" things in our life that while maybe they are rocking our world at the time we look back at them later and wonder why they were such a big deal at the time all that time He's looking at the bigger picture we cannot even begin to comprehend.
Now I'm usually the type of person who while I like to think that I tend to look at the bigger picture, I've never really stopped to look at God's bigger picture when I'm in the middle of something. It's not that I don't think about it, it's just that I'm so busy being consumed by what is going on around me that I can see that the idea of God's future that He's working toward can be like a fortune teller's prediction. It's there, you think about it, but at the same time while you are so sure of your faith and belief it's not enough to shake you out of the rut you've fallen into of living for the future based on what you understand about today. Now at this point I can already hear the gasps! I compared God to a fortune teller? How sacrilegious!! But isn't that what we do? We think about the future He has for us as this thing as shrouded in mystery as the intentionally vague predictions of a gypsy fortune teller. We want what we classify as excitement so badly that we will settle for creating it out of something that can be exciting in it's own right if we just let God lead our future.
Just as recently as yesterday something made me stop to look at what most of us would see as the little coincidences of life and I'm still alternating between laughing and crying about it! I'm not sure exactly how it happened, but I had one of those moments I like to refer to as my light bulb moments. One of those moments in time where you come to a realization that the life God wants to give you and the future He has for you is so much easier to attain than we want to make it. Honestly, admit it we are the ones that make things like becoming a missionary to deepest darkest Africa more exciting than going to work in small town America and challenging ourselves to see who we can impact today. We are the ones that see glamor in being handicapped and achieving great things rather than being healthy and making an impact in the people we meet daily.
We are blessed with so many things that we take for granted. And yes, I do realize that is a phrase we hear trotted out on a regular basis to encourage involvement in a variety of areas including, but not limited to volunteering and religious involvement, but I'm not talking about the "normal" references such as health, family, etc. I'm talking about the things that we even get into the future and "forget" about. How many of us are guilty of just going through life and never realizing at the time that God has put the exact people in our lives for the exact time we need them? How many times do we make things harder for ourselves by not utilizing the resources He gives us for a time such as this.
So back to my light bulb moment. As I set thinking about some of the recent things that have happened in my life and realized the unlikely areas I had received advice, support and prayers when I needed them the most it was almost overwhelming! My pastor often says that it's amazing how we are able to trust God to save us and with our distant future, but we have such a hard time trusting Him with the present future. It's so true. We can trust Him with what we can't see, but we are always guilty (myself included) of trying to figure our way out of the present problems on our own. Much as a toddler looks up and says "Mommy, I do myself" in much the same way we look at God and say, "Ok, you can step back, I have it under control, I can manage this one", but how often do we end up with a comedy of errors worthy of Abbott & Costello in the aftermath!
How different could it be if we took the resources and support that God sends into our lives and actually used them? I'm not one to make New Years Resolutions, but this year while I'm not calling it a resolution exactly, one of my prayers was that I would learn to look at things in a different way than I have in the past. That I would start to let God work more in the immediate future rather than the distant. In doing that I have found that my entire view of life has changed! I'm seeing the relationships He has sent into my life in an entirely different way and feel so overwhelmingly blessed sometimes all there is to do is laugh at how I never saw it before and cry that He thinks so much of me and my future that He takes the time to make sure my path crosses with those people that change your life and view on life completely and forever.
You know it's funny how so caught up in life we can get that we never think to stop and actually think about how much God cares about our everyday existence. I mean think about it He cares so much that while we are so busy trying to work our way through all of the "small" things in our life that while maybe they are rocking our world at the time we look back at them later and wonder why they were such a big deal at the time all that time He's looking at the bigger picture we cannot even begin to comprehend.
Now I'm usually the type of person who while I like to think that I tend to look at the bigger picture, I've never really stopped to look at God's bigger picture when I'm in the middle of something. It's not that I don't think about it, it's just that I'm so busy being consumed by what is going on around me that I can see that the idea of God's future that He's working toward can be like a fortune teller's prediction. It's there, you think about it, but at the same time while you are so sure of your faith and belief it's not enough to shake you out of the rut you've fallen into of living for the future based on what you understand about today. Now at this point I can already hear the gasps! I compared God to a fortune teller? How sacrilegious!! But isn't that what we do? We think about the future He has for us as this thing as shrouded in mystery as the intentionally vague predictions of a gypsy fortune teller. We want what we classify as excitement so badly that we will settle for creating it out of something that can be exciting in it's own right if we just let God lead our future.
Just as recently as yesterday something made me stop to look at what most of us would see as the little coincidences of life and I'm still alternating between laughing and crying about it! I'm not sure exactly how it happened, but I had one of those moments I like to refer to as my light bulb moments. One of those moments in time where you come to a realization that the life God wants to give you and the future He has for you is so much easier to attain than we want to make it. Honestly, admit it we are the ones that make things like becoming a missionary to deepest darkest Africa more exciting than going to work in small town America and challenging ourselves to see who we can impact today. We are the ones that see glamor in being handicapped and achieving great things rather than being healthy and making an impact in the people we meet daily.
We are blessed with so many things that we take for granted. And yes, I do realize that is a phrase we hear trotted out on a regular basis to encourage involvement in a variety of areas including, but not limited to volunteering and religious involvement, but I'm not talking about the "normal" references such as health, family, etc. I'm talking about the things that we even get into the future and "forget" about. How many of us are guilty of just going through life and never realizing at the time that God has put the exact people in our lives for the exact time we need them? How many times do we make things harder for ourselves by not utilizing the resources He gives us for a time such as this.
So back to my light bulb moment. As I set thinking about some of the recent things that have happened in my life and realized the unlikely areas I had received advice, support and prayers when I needed them the most it was almost overwhelming! My pastor often says that it's amazing how we are able to trust God to save us and with our distant future, but we have such a hard time trusting Him with the present future. It's so true. We can trust Him with what we can't see, but we are always guilty (myself included) of trying to figure our way out of the present problems on our own. Much as a toddler looks up and says "Mommy, I do myself" in much the same way we look at God and say, "Ok, you can step back, I have it under control, I can manage this one", but how often do we end up with a comedy of errors worthy of Abbott & Costello in the aftermath!
How different could it be if we took the resources and support that God sends into our lives and actually used them? I'm not one to make New Years Resolutions, but this year while I'm not calling it a resolution exactly, one of my prayers was that I would learn to look at things in a different way than I have in the past. That I would start to let God work more in the immediate future rather than the distant. In doing that I have found that my entire view of life has changed! I'm seeing the relationships He has sent into my life in an entirely different way and feel so overwhelmingly blessed sometimes all there is to do is laugh at how I never saw it before and cry that He thinks so much of me and my future that He takes the time to make sure my path crosses with those people that change your life and view on life completely and forever.
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