Enlarging our Comfort Zones

I often paddle with my husband in our two-seat kayak, but he always sits at the back and steers. So when my young grandson asked me to take him out, and I realized I would need to steer, I was anxious. I went anyway, because my grandson wanted to go. Within a short time, I realized that we were doing just fine. Some times we moved a little slow when we didn’t paddle together, and sometimes we spun in a circle when we dug too deep or shallow with our paddles, but that was all. I was able to steer well enough for us to have a wonderful outing on the lake. 

What was preceded by anxiety turned out to be fun. We had the chance to talk as we paddled, to sit and drift, and to just enjoy looking around at God’s creation. I was able to face my fears and realize that I only felt uncomfortable because I was dealing with the unfamiliar. I simply needed to enlarge my comfort zone.

I used to feel the same way about driving long distances by myself. A couple of years ago, I was going to a conference hours away and had no traveling companion. I was fearful about being on the road alone. Fearful of car problems or getting lost. However, I went anyway because I had made a commitment to attend. I faced my fears by enlarging my comfort zone. 

I remember my anxiousness when I graduated from college and began my first job as an elementary school teacher. This experience was new and unfamiliar, yet - at that point in my life - it was exactly what I wanted to do. So I needed to enlarge my comfort zone by pushing through my discomfort.

These experiences and others have challenged me to see the phrase “comfort zone” in a new way. My goal cannot be to step outside of my comfort zone (and then to later retract myself back inside), but to stretch my comfort zone. To enlarge it, so things that once were uncomfortable become comfortable.

Stretching my comfort zone doesn’t happen just in the areas of learning new skills or trying new activities. It also can apply to my faith experience as I allow the boundaries of my comfort zone to expand. 

I grew up singing hymns in a church with a fairly formal liturgy and a building with a steeple. Since that time, I’ve experienced a variety of worship services with different instruments and different types of seating arrangements. I've worshipped in churches that met in movie theaters, in formal cathedrals, and everything in between. 

I’ve also learned a great deal about the Bible and the experience of prayer. I grew up reading the King James Bible, but enjoyed The Living Bible (a precursor to The Message) in high school. I’ve read prayers from prayer books, read prayers of the early saints and desert Fathers, as well as enjoyed the informality of prayers in planes, on camping trips, and many other places. 

These spiritual experiences and others have broadened and deepened my spiritual comfort zone. Like driving long distances by myself, or steering a kayak for the first time, I’ve found a great deal of freedom in expanding my spiritual comfort zone, and seeing how God walks with me to help me embrace new experiences. 

As I allow myself to embrace the uncomfortable, I am able to grow and change. I gain a new perspective in how I see life, and have new opportunities to experience life. So I continue to ask the Lord for boldness in trying new things, and in discovering new ways to grow, so I can enlarge my experience of God and his world. 

And it consistently happens in those moments when I face my fears and anxieties, and ask God to help me enlarge my comfort zone. Can you ask God to do the same for you?

Let me pray for you as you go out into your day. 

Dear Jesus, thank you for providing experiences to help us all grow and expand our comfort zones. I pray for those reading this blog, that you will help them see that it's good for them to face their fears and try new things. Help them remember that you will be with them as they step out from what’s familiar and see life and faith from a new perspective. May your spirit guide them as they allow you to take the unfamiliar and the uncomfortable, and make it comfortable. In your name, Amen. 

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