Think about this story. It is about Joshua in the Old Testament of the Bible. He and the Israelites were about to cross the Jordon River to take possession of the land that God had promised them. The only reason they hadn’t done it yet was because:

1.) They couldn’t get over their past, and sometimes they missed where they had come from (when they had been slaves in Egypt, crazy huh?)

2.) They were comfortable where they were living (in the wild of the desert) and were afraid of the new things in the land ahead. They finally got over it decided to cross the river. (by “got over it” I mean most of the “Egypt-slave generation” died out)

Joshua 3:15 says the river they needed to cross was at flood stage and had overflowed all its banks. God said, “I know this may be ‘uncomfortable’ for you, but just step out into the river and I’ll take care of the rest.” They remembered the whole Moses and the Red Sea thing so they decided to give it a shot. As Jamie Austin says, “All they had to do was cross the scary flooded river… that’s it. (Yeah right!)”

So they stepped into the scary, flooded river and guess what? Verse 16 says, “the water from up stream stopped flowing. It piled up in a heap a great distance away at a town called Adam.” Just so you know, that was 20 miles up stream. That means God actually stopped the water WAY before any of them stepped into it!

We need to remember that before we freak out because of the new or uncomfortable parts of our lives, God has already taken care of us.

The reason we hate to get out of our comfort zone is that it makes us feel weak or vulnerable. We have all felt the anxiety of doing something new or different for the first time. What we easily forget is the feeling of reward or accomplishment after we do those things.

There is a reward when we step out of the comfort. We get to new heights, places we have never been before. When we get there we often realize the fears we had were merely because of the newness. Meaning our fears are often unsubstantiated.

Mental assent isn’t enough. It is important to outwardly show that life has changed. What I am saying is that we must get past our comforts to pursue God, and usually this means doing something to express our freedom. That is, freedom from the past failures and successes. We have to put some action with our faith and “step out.”

What we need are some practical ways of positioning ourselves for God to break into our lives. The fact of the matter is that this can be very uncomfortable, much like it was for Paul (remember the being struck blind thing).

Let me be perfectly honest 🙂 it isn’t always fun to take time for prayer. It can be tiring to read the Word of God. But it is also life changing. And it develops into having a yearning to do those things.

Also, after we begin to press in toward God, he thinks it is really great to press in towards us. In reality this can be terrifying. Especially considering the fact that sometimes he likes to come in and mix things up for us. It makes us feel weak. It makes us feel vulnerable. But he uses our weakness to get us past the meaningless fodder of our daily lives. And also past the pride of where we think our steps should go. You see, God wants to give meaning to your life, but it will cost you exactly that, your life.

When we truly begin to live righteously, we begin to let God have his way.