Comfort Zone
Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness. Isaiah 41:10
Where is your comfort zone? What temperature keeps you comfortable? My brother and his wife like their house in the mid-60’s. My parents favor mid 70’s. My paternal grandparents preferred to keep their house just one notch below ‘sweltering.’ Personally, I like it around 70 until I go to bed, and then my middle aged female body would really like it to be around 50, but I only go to 64 for my husband’s sake. Everyone has a different temperature that they find comfortable.
Coffee usually brings out similar thoughts in people… hot or cold. I love coffee… it hasn’t always been that way, but I have definitely developed a pretty big affinity for it lately. I like it piping hot, and I like it frozen, frappuccino style. I have collected a fairly large selection of coffees and syrups. I enjoy trying them in tons of different combinations. But, when it sits on my desk and becomes tepid, bleh. I don’t care for it.
I spent a large amount of time as a tepid Christian. Purposely. I was uncomfortable around people who spent what I felt like was an inordinate amount of time talking about and thinking about God. I was uncomfortable talking about what God was doing in their lives, because I didn’t want Him in my daily decisions. I even used derotagory terms for them: “Overly Saved” or “Super Christians.” This is coming from a woman who was in church multiple times a week and teaching Sunday School. I looked like a good Christian, but my faith was undeveloped. I was and am saved, I just never bothered to grow beyond that.
Last year was the 40th anniversary of our Pastor’s very first sermon. One evening, some friends and I sat and chatted with his wife about his time in the ministry and the changes it brought to their lives. She spoke of his yielding to the call into the ministry, facing the changes that would come as he accepted his first pastorate, and following the leading of the Holy Spirit and moving 600+ miles from a major metropolitan area to a tiny little county seat in West Tennessee. With the memory of each change, she smiled as she recounted her own fears and reservations and Pastor’s calm acceptance of, and trust in, the changes God was bringing into their lives, of laying awake at night worrying while he slept comfortably beside her. I wondered at the level of faith it required to follow the Lord as he stood to preach that first sermon, quit a good job to take a full time pastorate, or even move to a whole different region, all in faithful obedience to serve God in a tiny country church.
For me, personally, when I felt the Lord calling me into a deeper relationship with Him, I was terrified… I knew the life I was living wasn’t pleasing to Him, but I was terrified at what changes He might ask me to make. Would I like them? Would they cause me suffering? In the end, I felt like if I didn’t choose Him over this world, He just might take me on out of it. And, I didn’t want to meet Him without having been obedient to what I felt like He was asking. And so, in a simple act of surrender…. of everything… more than my soul, more than claiming Him as my Savior, but surrendering my whole life, every aspect of it to Him, I suddenly became HOT… ‘on fire for the Lord’
What does it take to heat up your relationship with our Lord? I would say, probably, obedience would be the key. We have a few basic things we know we’re supposed to do after our salvation: first and foremost, we’re supposed to get baptized, and then grow.
