Outside My Comfort Zone
God is looking for people to use, and if you can get usable, he will wear you out. The most dangerous prayer you can pray is this: “Use me.”
RICK WARREN
Ben and I both want to live lives that don’t center around ourselves or our comfort. We prayed years ago (and still pray today) for God to use us to make a difference in the lives of others, that we would constantly have our door open. When the words, Use me and Send me first escaped our lips, we had no idea what it would look like when He did.
Our Lord has asked Ben and me to do so many things out of our comfort zones, outside our humanly planned first-choice desires. So much so, in fact, that at this point when things seem smooth and we’re settling into a rose-colored season, I feel I’m not hearing the Lord correctly and jump deeper into the Word and my time of prayer with Him.
I want to make sure I’m not drifting in a life I built myself. Perhaps at some point God will grant me the gift of rest outside of Sabbath and I won’t feel this so intensely, but I have a feeling it won’t be on this side of heaven. Why should it be? Every day He reminds me, I didn’t put you in this world to be content. I put you in this world to make a difference for My kingdom.
One morning while having some time of quiet with my Lord, I felt a prompting to dig into what contentment truly meant and what He wanted it to signify for me.
I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstance.
Philippians 4:11 NIV
When searching my thesaurus for the word content, I saw what I expected—it means to be fulfilled, willing, and satisfied.12 I love that it says “willing,” don’t you? Yes, Lord, I am willing. I will be content in what You will. I will be satisfied.
Continuing to other synonyms, however, my eyes stopped on the words comfortable, complacent, smug, and the phrase fat and happy.
Wow.
Pretty sure that’s not at all what we’re supposed to be.
I think it’s so easy for us to be content with how our lives are playing out. Sure, we want this … and that change would be nice, but all in all, life is fine. We don’t want to rock the boat. We’re content.
Admittedly, when I’m soul weary there are times I actually crave the fat and happy idea. Sometimes I’m tired and the concept of being complacent doesn’t sound too bad. But I don’t think that’s the contentment God desires of us.
In my heart, I know it’s when He stretches me and I have no choice but to lean heavily on Him that I need to be content. Content with knowing His plan is the best plan. Unconditional contentment even in the wait. Even in the midst of pain. Even while taking up residence in the valley. It’s thriving like we learned about in Jeremiah 29.
If our flames grow dim, it means there’s so much life we’re missing. In 2 Timothy 1:6 (ESV), Paul reminded us “to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you …” By using this particular visual, Paul made it abundantly clear to his friend Timothy (and now to us) that if we do not tend to the fire, fanning it to keep it ablaze, it will go out. Not that God will cease to love us or invite us in, but that our love for Him can flicker out. That’s not what I want … and I have a feeling that’s not what you want either.
I traveled to Dallas recently to spend time with Christian women from around the country at an annual conference called IF:Lead. My friend, Tatum, wanted me to connect with her sister while there since she was also attending. I quickly learned she had only been a Christian for about a year. There was something distinct about this girl and it took only moments to realize what it was: she was ablaze. Her spirit was incandescent, and I was drawn to her like a moth to a flame. I wanted what she had. The funny thing is that she felt the same about me. Sitting together waiting for a workshop to begin, she shared how little she feels like she knows about God and the Bible but she wanted to know it all. I imagined her sitting on the bank of a great pool of water with a straw in her mouth, drawing Christ’s knowledge and wisdom deep into her very being. She was a sponge and she knew it, wanting Him and nothing less than everything He had to give.
When she said she wanted what I had, it was for a different reason than mine. She perceived that I had the knowledge already, that because I’d known Him longer, I knew more. And though I may have more comprehension of the Scriptures, I told her that she knew more than she realized. She was a glowing example of His love and His grace. Tatum told me later that she’s a different person with Christ steering her life and it’s as if the real, more complete her has now stepped out.
That is what I want. And it was exactly what Paul was hinting at. The spirit within this girl was dazzling and resplendent, and so should ours be. Yet how do we move past the mountaintop experience of being a new Christian, or having just come home from a Christian retreat or camp, and keep that flame gleaming bright?
We keep getting to know Him.
You “know” your parents, your friends, your boyfriend, or your husband, but you also have the desire to continue learning and growing and knowing more about them because you love them. It should be the same with God. We can’t say we “know” Him and stop there. That’s not a true relationship; that’s merely interest that breeds indifference.
We must fan the flame in our relationship with the Lord by spending time with Him in prayer and learning who He really is, as well as living a life that reflects our trust and faith in Him. Even if responding to His request means nothing will ever be the same, we must stir the embers and say yes.
During the months of waiting before bringing Imani home, a quiet tapping eventually exploded into a deep ache, knowing this was only the beginning of the expansion of our family. The realization that Christ was asking us to release the windowsill and make another scary-feeling jump forced us to live even further outside our comfort zones. The thought of it made me tremble.
Just when I thought I’d made so much progress in hearing God’s voice and obeying His promptings, the bigness of what He was requiring of Ben and me made me take a few steps back. Back into the fears of my youth.
Can I be really raw and vulnerable with you for a minute? Because I think there’s (at least) one thing in our lives we pray against. Something we don’t want to do or be part of. A place where we don’t want to get our hands dirty. Maybe it’s too big. Or too seemingly painful. Perhaps the scariness is simply the unknown of it. Or perhaps we pray against it because we know that with the acceptance of this calling, life will become the opposite of what we’ve worked so hard to create.
For me, this thing was Africa.
Christians rarely admit that they pray against going to serve Christ in a particular place, but I did. I did not want to be called to Africa. I was scared of the poverty, the extreme without. I was afraid of the disease and the children whose faces are covered with flies and who have sickened feet without the protection of shoes. It was a scary, unknown continent where missionaries wear long skirts and wraps in their hair. There’s dust. Lots of dust. And maybe disease-bearing mosquitos. And Ebola.
Yes, there are those beautiful smiles from those beautiful dark faces. Those eyes that show both pain and joy. But still, I secretly prayed, Jesus, anywhere. Anywhere … but Africa.
And so I went about my days and perhaps prayed for the people of Sudan or Uganda when I thought of it, but as I prayed, deep down I was scared that if I spent too much time praying, God would somehow think maybe He should send me there. So I made my prayers quick.
Even having lived in Guatemala and seeing poverty firsthand, I pushed memories from my mind, forcing myself to become numb. Since that part of my life wasn’t embraced by most around me, I compartmentalized those experiences, almost pretending they didn’t happen.
I’m horrified to tell you that in my heart I’d roll my eyes when members of yet another mission trip returned telling of the “wonderful” and “amazing” things they saw in Kenya, Sierra Leone, and Ghana. How God was moving there and they were honored to be part of it. Genuinely, from the bottom of my heart, I prayed I would not have to have anything to do with Africa.
I didn’t recognize it then, but everything changed the day I sat on that wooden park bench overlooking Seattle’s Space Needle. The day I laid my plans at Jesus’s feet and told Him to take the pen I was writing my own life with and altered the direction of my future.
Not my will, but Yours, Father. Use me—really, really use me. I was as serious about it at that moment as I am today.
I’m not going to tell you that I suddenly loved children and woke up one day wanting a big family. Nor did I immediately feel a tug toward Africa. I didn’t even know I was yet to give up on my dream to be an art curator.
But little by little, Christ revealed Himself to me.
Just like Christ has adopted each of us into His family, as Ben and I grew in our faith, we realized we wanted to adopt and pour love into these kids who may not otherwise have any. And He just kept opening up my selfish heart. And opening and opening and opening. He’s still opening it, urging it wider with His good and graciously patient hands.
There have been so many “I’d never” moments that have turned into “I cannot wait” ones. Disgust into desire. Unlove into deep, deep passion.
And it’s not because I prayed I wouldn’t be sent to Africa. Though I envision Him sitting up in heaven, chuckling and rolling His eyes at me for the thousandth time, I don’t think my passion came from my fear and disregard of this continent full of history and beautiful people. It came because He knew I was made to be a mom to my kids, for He knew their future already. He knew the sweet mamas of other little loves who would one day need us to care for their children.
Christ knew we would be a listening ear to countless families going through international adoptions and that we were to raise awareness to it, particularly toward adopting older children. Our life and our callings and passions aren’t because God is trying to give us our greatest fears. He doesn’t feel powerful granting us our dread.
What He does do, though, when we genuinely want nothing more than the life He’s designed for us, is change our very hearts. He knows our giftings and where we could be used best.
For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
Psalm 139:13 NIV
He’s the One who created us! Wouldn’t He be the perfect One to tell us how our gifts and loves and passions could best be utilized? Even those passions we haven’t quite uncovered or discovered yet will be used. If we let Him, the Lord will give our hearts a new song, a new purpose, and deep, deep desires.
Sometimes it is similar to something we’re already doing, combining with things we already love. But other times—as in my case—He simply throws out all the old to make room for the new.
And the new is so much more fulfilling and true than anything I could have planned on my own.
So Africa? I’m no longer scared of you. My prayers have changed from pleading not to set foot on your soil to begging that He gives me another opportunity to run in your direction. Your people are joyful and generous, your history rich and deep. And your land is so much more beautiful than I could’ve imagined. I want your scent to rub off on me. I want more of you.
You will again obey the LORD and follow all his commands I am giving you today. Then the LORD your God will make you most prosperous in all the work of your hands and in the fruit of your womb, the young of your livestock and the crops of your land. The LORD will again delight in you and make you prosperous, just as he delighted in your ancestors, if you obey the LORD your God and keep his commands and decrees that are written in this Book of the Law and turn to the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.
Deuteronomy 30:8–10 NIV
I was talking to a friend earlier today who has a nonprofit in Uganda. We were chatting about how strange it is to be homesick and long for a place that has never been our home. “It’s my heart’s home,” she said. Yes, I thought. YES. She gets it. She, too, has had her heart fixed and changed and transformed according to the life Christ put her on this earth for.
Yes.
Jesus, forever yes.
Change our hearts. Because with You, nothing is scary. Not even Africa.
Isn’t it amazing that the comfort zones God asks each of us to live outside of are so varied? He calls us to such different things, gifting us with tremendously diverse passions.
A dear friend of mine works in television. Even when we were growing up, you could tell she was made for it. Though we’d met in preschool, she was one of the genuine girls I found after coming back home from Guatemala, wanting so desperately to fit in like I once had, yet struggling with the knowledge that I might not actually want to in the same way I did before.
Through the years, I’ve seen Megan covering Thursday Night Football and on television shows and movies. To me, she is my friend Meggie, but to those who see her on Inside Edition, she is known as Megan Alexander, the woman who meets and interviews incredible world changers, dresses for the red carpet, and travels the world. From the outside looking in, her life of fame looks exciting, yet what we don’t see is all the behind-the-scenes occurrences where she holds on to the Lord with white knuckles. He uses her in great ways, but as He does, He’s strengthening her trust in Him while calling her out of her comfort zone nearly every day. Inviting her into the folds of His calling through day-to-day hard work and sweat, God gifts her with an extreme passion for her job and the ministry it’s provided for her and her family. God has given her a seat at a table most of us aren’t invited to, but Megan uses the opportunities He’s given her to shine bright for Him in all she does.
The different life paths Megan and I are on remind me of the passage in 1 Corinthians that speaks of one body with many parts.
Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ…. Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many. Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be.
1 Corinthians 12:12, 14–18 NIV
Society often puts adoptive moms on a pedestal we don’t deserve. Similarly, we may think my sweet friend Megan is a more impressive and important part of the body because she’s on TV and meets with impactful and famous people every day.
We may feel unimportant as we settle into our cubicle each morning at a job we’re not thrilled with.
Maybe we’ll find ourselves at the grocery store for the second time that day, and we will also most certainly reach into the closet for the broom and dustpan because, for the twelfth time today, snacks have been spilled by grubby little hands still figuring out how to eat by themselves, and at the end of the day we find ourselves scrolling through social media fawning over the moms who appear to have it all together.
Rather than comparing ourselves to others, let’s instead be challenged and encouraged by the words of Paul in that passage above.
We are every bit as important to the body of Christ as Megan, Mother Teresa, Billy Graham, our pastors, missionaries, or so many others we look up to.
We each have different callings—and that’s good.
It’s biblical.
It’s important.
Who wants a body full of hands anyway? Weird.
Living a life outside our comfort zone is more about how our heart is positioned than where we are physically placed.
There’s something about this quote that makes my throat tighten up and my heart ache:
If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, “Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.”
Martin Luther King Jr.13
Amen, Dr. King. Amen.
My grandfather worked for Wonder Bread and Mother’s Cookies for most of his adult life (which, side note, was pretty much the coolest job a grandpa could have—he was always letting us jump up into his big delivery truck and choose whatever package of cookies we wanted). My grandpa, whom we all appropriately call “Cookie,” is like this street sweeper Dr. King describes. Most people probably wouldn’t care much about a job as a cookie distributor. But Grandpa Cookie did his job better than well. He did it with excellence. He did it with great pride.
Don’t allow anyone to make you second-guess what you’re positive Christ has put on your heart.
Instead of simply going about his job, Cookie went outside his comfort zone and learned details about the individuals he came in contact with throughout his days. He knew everyone who worked in each and every store and he knew their stories. He knew them and joked with them and fellowshiped with them.
He shared life with them.
It wasn’t about the cookies he lined up so neatly on the grocery store shelves. It was about the people.
He has made a difference in the lives of so many. He has long since retired, but even still, years later, when I would visit Seattle and swing by our neighborhood QFC grocery store, I was greeted with questions of how Cookie was doing. Stories would then be retold, which always seem to end in laughter when Cookie was involved. Because Grandpa Cookie tells jokes and people love him.
Cookie is someone who lives out the example Jesus set when He walked the earth. Warmhearted and caring.
Cookie and Megan and you and me, we’re different. I was called to adoption and to have a houseful of children and to write a book and blog.
You are likely called to do something completely different. Something God has planned and equally as important.
Please, please don’t allow anyone to belittle your calling.
Don’t allow anyone to make you second-guess what you’re positive Christ has put on your heart. Whether it’s something huge and daunting, something that’s a bit scary and seems bigger than you can actually accomplish, or something that others may think isn’t big enough.
“My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the LORD. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.”
Isaiah 55:8–9 NLT
Whether the Lord has called you to be the crossing guard at your kid’s school, work with recovering addicts in the inner city, begin a Bible study for college girls, or start a jewelry business partnering with artisan entrepreneurs to make a difference in some of the world’s most vulnerable communities—it’s all important.
Why?
Because the Lord has asked you to do it.
And that’s enough.