Sweeter Outcomes (#816)
Wayne's back from his first God Journey trip since COVID began and Kyle wants the details. If there was a theme to this trip it was to flow with God through the unplanned, spontaneous opportunities that arise in the moment, rather than sticking to the plan Wayne had in mind. One of the recurring themes that kept cropping up is how often we are guided in prayer by our desire to keep our comfort zones intact, and yet God's truth often invites us out of our circumstantial comfort and convenience into the sweeter outcomes God has in mind. To follow him there, we need to have enough relationship with him to trust his love and be at rest in his work and purpose.
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Thank you Kyle and Wayne…..wow…you both were “spot on” in so much encouragment. Your words helped to express what I have been processing with Father. Sue
Hi Kyle and Wayne,
I have ALWAYS been uncomfortable with the term “comfort zone.” It has bugged me since I’ve first heard it. I guess, because in this world I’ve realized that I was gonna be uncomfortable. When I look back over my life there has been tragedy and angst and fear and stuff like that.
So one day (well, it was really a series of days/time) I asked ABBA why this “comfort zone” business gets on my nerves. I kept hearing in that wonderful quiet voice “watch what I do.” Sometimes He would ask me “who are you trusting with your life?” Then one day I thought to myself, folks keep saying get out of your comfort zone and thought, nope, I need to get into my comfort zone. Yeah, that’s it!!! Get into your comfort zone and for me that was finding out who PAPA, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are. I am uncomfortable in this world but when I focus or think about ABBA I start feeling comfortable. After all didn’t Jesus say he would send the “Comforter” our way.
When I first told a few of my close friends about my take on the “comfort zone” angle, they tried to explain to me what the horrible saying really meant, lol (I’m kind of the odd duck in my groups of friends). But a few of them are rethinking that term and we have had a few cool “comfortable” conversations.
I feel soooooo much more comfortable listening to Papa than dealing with the uncomfortable worry and guilt and shame and greed I have been exposed to or even been involved with in this world system.
You and Kyle are very generous to allow me to, um, almost rant about this topic. Thanks for your indulgence .
And thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for this podcast!!! It truly has been God sent.
Marcia
this conversation reminded me of C.S. Lewis writing about First and Second Things. Second Things of course being praying for the comfort zone and mistaking it as a First Thing. Living for the “blessings” is kind of like living for signs and wonders. And I loved the email. what I noticed in all the stories that are told a long this theme is that the path is ALWAYS humbling. IT’s the being humbled part that we resist. So moving back with mom and dad is humbling. Being dumped from the church you started is humbling. Some of these stories the path has humiliation involved. I say that word and people just cringe and twist their face and say NO NO NO. It’s like Brene Brown getting so much push back just using the word shame in her talks.
The C.S. Lewis quote:C.S. Lewis:
The woman who makes a dog the centre of her life loses, in the end, not only her human usefulness and dignity but even the proper pleasure of dog-keeping.
The man who makes alcohol his chief good loses not only his job but his palate and all power of enjoying the earlier (and only pleasurable) levels of intoxication.
It is a glorious thing to feel for a moment or two that the whole meaning of the universe is summed up in one woman—glorious so long as other duties and pleasures keep tearing you away from her. But clear the decks and so arrange your life (it is sometimes feasible) that you will have nothing to do but contemplate her, and what happens?
Of course this law has been discovered before, but it will stand re-discovery. It may be stated as follows: every preference of a small good to a great, or partial good to a total good, involves the loss of the small or partial good for which the sacrifice is made.
. . . You can’t get second things by putting them first. You get second things only by putting first things first.
—C.S. Lewis, “First and Second Things,” in God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics (Eerdmans, 1994), p. 280.
{HT: Joel Willitts}
This, of course, is reminiscent of Lewis’s comment in a letter to Dom Bede Griffiths (April 23, 1951):
“Put first things first and we get second things thrown in: put second things first and we lose both first and second things. We never get, say, even the sensual pleasure of food at its best when we are being greedy.”