Stepping Out of Your Comfort Zone

You’ve just received word that the company is downsizing and your job has been eliminated. Fear, anxiety, anger, even a sense of hopelessness flood your mind. What will you do? Where will you go? In the back of your mind you know that you may have to relocate. Change.

The last few months you have spent hours going over brochures of colleges, trying to decide which one is the right choice to make. You want your son or daughter, as the case may be, to be satisfied with the decision, but finances play a major role in the choice that is made. Finally the day arrives when that one who has been a major part of your life for 18 years is leaving home, going off to college. Your stomach knots up as you struggle to hold back the tears. It won’t be the same, ever again. Change.

The church’s facilities are old and in need of major repair. The demographics of the city have shifted and to be affective, the church must consider its future role in its present community. Avenues for outreach have almost come to a standstill due to language and custom barriers. In the back of everyone’s mind is the nagging question of what to do. If we move, where to, when, and who will lead? Whatever the church decides to do everyone knows that things will never be the same again. Change.

People fear change. It is an unknown and in that quality resides the fear that both causes change and hinders it. Today it’s called stepping out of your comfort zone and I guess that’s a good name for it. Still it means you have to do something you’ve never done before; embrace another man’s vision and decide whether or not you can trust him. That’s what it comes down to in the long run. Trust, pure and simple. But have you noticed just how hard that can be, to place total trust in someone, regardless of who he or she may be?

Have you ever considered why God placed men over His flock; why He gave mortal men the responsibility of looking after His children while in this life? Give that some thought, I mean beyond the textbook answer. Maybe, just maybe, God knew us well enough to realize that if anything substantial was ever to be accomplished on planet earth, we needed someone to follow; someone we could see, talk to, build a relationship with; someone physical with the same sinful tendencies we all have, yet able to live a life that inspires us to walk closer to our God. I know we have God’s Word and I believe it is the infallible, inerrant Word of almighty God, but at times I still need that human interaction, that human example of faith, of depending on God, of standing for what’s right.

Look at the apostle Paul. He’s the one who said, “Follow me as I follow the Lord” (paraphrase). The prophets of old admonished the people under their hearing to listen and do as they said. Then of course there’s Moses, possibly the greatest leader of all time. He returned to a people, who had sought his life, with the command of God to lead those same people out of Egypt to a land “flowing with milk and honey”–the Promised Land. Now that was change, and the people followed, complaining and griping all the way.

If God has placed you in a position of leadership over a group of people much like the Israelites headed for Canaan or even 1st century Christians, take heart. You stand in the gap; you are the one most will look to, not the Lord. Most of your people will follow the Lord only as you do. And in that you will be able to inspire some to train their eye on Christ and not on you. And when that happens you will have instigated change. You will have forced people out of their comfort zone. Where once your people looked only to you for how to live, what to believe, how to trust, and how to serve, as time goes by they will keep their eyes on Christ and follow where He leads; live as He teaches; believe what He says, and serve where He leads.

The neat thing about the entire process is that it never stops. There will always be others to take the place of those who have matured to the point that they will follow Christ, even if, God forbid, you don’t. They will have changed–stepped out of their comfort zone–and the church takes another step forward. And that’s a good thing.

Whether your voice speaks from time past; whether you walk out of the desert or come down from the hills, God has called you to be a catalyst for change. And that will impact people’s hearts, minds, and emotions. In order for you to accomplish what God has for you, you too may have to step out of your comfort zone. You up to it? I sure hope so.

Grams