Here’s how it works: Saturdays find me as intense as a laser in preparation, Sundays I explode like a bomb in ministry and Mondays I feel like snail on muscle relaxers, barely able to achieve the basics. I try not to schedule anything that might have some semblance of significance on my Mondays because there is no other time during a normal week when I have less to offer as a member of the human species. It is not only yours truly that feels this way – a study by FASICLD (Francis A. Schaeffer Institute of Church Leadership Development) revealed that 90% of pastors stated they are frequently fatigued, and worn out on a weekly and even daily basis and only 23%) of the pastors we surveyed said they felt happy and content on a regular basis with who they are in Christ, in their church, and in their home. Now that does not reflect my normal outlook on life and ministry but on Monday it certainly feels like it could possibly hit the bullseye.
“By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going.” – Hebrews 11:8
Abraham hit the road running and did not have a map. God called Him to do so. Today, many would have counseled ol’ Abe to be more prudent, to exemplify a little more level-headedness, to consider the needs of those around him before launching off on some mysterious quest with God. Abraham seemed to only hear the Lord’s voice as “he went out, not knowing where”. Sometimes God will call you to this same type of commitment and we need to exit our state of shock when we consider that this manner of God’s dealings with people is actually more common than we 21st century Western Christians care to admit. God is not safe. God is not predictable. God is not cautious. So why are we disproportionately so?
How neatly is God fitting Himself into your plans these days? Whether you admit it or not you have a presumption concerning what your life should be. You plan around, prepare for, pray about and pursue what you want your life to consist of. I applaud you in that because I do the same – there’s nothing wrong with living out a vision. As I mentioned above, my whole weekend follows almost the exact same pattern 100% of the time. It has become my normal mode…my comfort zone. If I’m being honest, I also have a zone for my Mondays through Fridays. There has not been a whole lot of variety in my life for the last decade or so. Pragmatism rules the day and I seemingly have little desire or ability to adjust on the fly. If you are like me, you eventually find something that works for you and you presume that this will be God’s way of leading you for the next half-century or so. We call this a life. Think about it: you and I structure our lives to facilitate our agendas and there is usually a large part of those agendas devoted to what brings us pleasure, devoted to what works for us. I’m all for pleasure as I consider it more appealing than the alternative. The bible even teaches us that God is pro-pleasure and that He works in ways that afford the opportunity for us to enjoy all things which He brings to us (1 Timothy 6:17). Yet we should be wise to recognize that not all pleasures are immediate nor superficial. Some pleasures are not front-loaded in your life experiences. Some pleasures (perhaps the richest pleasures?) only occur at the end of a corridor of circumstantial discomfort. We Christians do not always exemplify stellar responses when God removes our comfort zones so that He may eventually replace them with pleasure zones. That’s right, I said it: comfort is not always synonymous with pleasure. Sometimes comfort can become a paralyzing ailment. This is why God occasionally utilizes His celestial jackhammer to shake up and break up our day to day living. Some of you are living out that reality today and you are sensing that something is wrong. Something amiss is occurring because, well, you are uncomfortable. Sounds to me like God may be setting you up for an encounter with Him. Rarely does a life changing season of encounter with God occur in the context of your predictable, protected comfort zone. He’s evicting you from comfort in order to introduce you to pleasure. I hope you won’t run from it.
Forgive the repetitive use of the term but let me give you one last thought about comfort zones: they are presumed by most, promised to none. There is actually no teaching in scripture that legitimately supports the notion that God will never send us scrambling through adversity, change or even the occasional upheaval. In order to deepen us, develop us and deploy us He first commits to diminish us. That’s right; the Christian journey does not involve us swelling with juicy greatness the longer we walk with Jesus. Taking up our cross and following Jesus cannot be done on cruise control with the sunroof open and an ice cold beverage refreshing us every mile along the way. That is a superficial view of God’s ways and, frankly, completely foreign to what we see in Scripture and history. I want to encourage some of you who are struggling with a new round of difficulties. I want to come alongside some who are feeling so isolated because you are spiritually, emotionally or relationally hemorrhaging. Please don’t view your experience as the displeasure of God. Have you committed yourself to Him? Has Jesus washed you and removed your guilt through His sacrifice? Are you trusting in Christ as your Lord in this very moment? Then I tell you with no restraint that your God is for you. He has gone ahead of you. He protects you also from behind as He simultaneously undergirds you from below while He overshadows you from above. You are surrounded by divine goodness and love and this amazing God knows what He is working on your behalf. The nest of your past will not be the same nest for your future. He never promised it would be and you are right to discern that He is breaking up some of what you have rested in as He moves you a little deeper into the unknown. This is a clear token of His commitment and love for you as He dispatches you to leave that former nest and to fly like Abraham did, not knowing exactly where…or how…or when.
You can have a comfort zone or you can have God’s good pleasure. It is likely that you cannot always experience both together. Embrace this and wait to see what He does next.