Two weeks ago I went to the second week of the teen camp session at FPYC and learned a lot about stepping outside my comfort zone. The theme of the session was “Rise Up”, but that quickly turned into “Do Hard Things”. Just a few days earlier I had finished a book called “Do Hard Things” by the Harris twins and so I quickly opened up my eyes to see what God had in store for the week. Little did I know what He had planned for me.
Doing hard things requires a lot of sacrifice. When we follow Jesus we are making the daily decision to present ourselves to Him as living sacrifices. This doesn’t just mean only giving up things that hinder our relationship with God. This means sacrificing our comfort completely for Him, stepping out of OUR comfort zone and into God’s. This requires a huge step of faith, but opens up so many opportunities. When it comes down to it there is a lot we are capable of doing that we don’t do and God is always very good about showing us that.
“Be careful, then, how you live - not as un-wise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.” – Ephsians 15-16
When I was a little kid and heard the phrase “comfort zone” I imagined a red circle with yellow lines running diagonally across the inside that people stood inside. As I grew up, I realized that it was way more then just a silly little red circle. It was a self-established boundary that separated us from things that we were uncomfortable with doing. If something ever penetrated this little “circle” then our sirens would immediately go off.
“Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – His good, pleasing and perfect will.” – Romans 12:2
Having faith in God requires a lot of transformation! We can’t expect to step into a completely different lifestyle and be completely at home right away. It is only by His work in us that we are able to fight our sin and the temptation that constantly drags us back to our knees. To sacrifice our comfort we must allow God to transform our hearts and our minds so that we no longer live for ourselves, but live to glorify Him! Admitting our fears, our struggles and our weaknesses is hard, but we can’t allow them to become excuses that keep us from our work in Christ. We need to give them to God an allow Him to pull us through each one of them so that we might be strengthened in our faith. The hard thing is taking that step. It’s easy to keep on living our old lifestyle with good intentions of changing, but that doesn’t get us anywhere. It’s time to put away the pride and take out the compassion that saves.
I think that our natural tendency is to assume that if something doesn’t feel right that it’s not something we should be doing, which in most cases is true. However, sometimes the hardest thing is the right thing to do no matter how uncomfortable it is. It’s ok to be scared or nervous… even Jesus felt that way before going to the cross for our sins. The important thing to remember is that no matter what, we have Jesus by our side giving us the strength and support we need. That doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy, it just means that we have a true and real hope for survival against sin.
“That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weakness, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” - 2 Corinthians 12:10
There is often a struggle to stand when we face our weaknesses, but we can’t allow a weakness to be a foot hold for Satan. We are always going to face trials and weaknesses, but we need to remember that it is in our greatest times of weakness that God makes us strong and it is through those difficult times that we gain perseverance and faith. There is so much growth that takes place in hardship. When God calls we can’t give up. He will always make it possible for us to complete the task He sets before us. We just can’t rely on our own strength or wisdom to get through it. It’s only by Him!
“Brothers, each man, as responsible to God, should remain in the situation God called Him to.” - 1 Corinthians 7:24
Staying within our level of familiarity and avoiding anything that requires us to take a bigger step then we are comfortable with is living in a state of selfishness. If we put ourselves before God then our priorities are a little out of whack. What if we challenged ourselves to actually take a step and stretch ourselves to step into a zone where there are no limits. With God everything is possible; the only thing stopping us is ourselves. We are all capable of doing great things; we all have the same amount of time in each day. It’s how we spend it that counts. So this is our challenge… step out in faith and into glory! DO HARD THINGS!
To be continued….