We all have our comfort zone, the circumstances that we’re comfortable with or the people that we’ve learned to interact with easily and without much conscious effort. The borders of that zone are often determined by various factors, including past experiences, our fears, cultural expectations and what we think will be acceptable to others, and what we consider are reasonable levels of effort on our part that won’t create stress or anxiety.
Our comfort zone is nice and cozy. The problem is that if we allow it to govern our decisions, it can end up leaving little room for personal growth and development. It can stifle our being able to experience all that life has to offer, and unless we continue to grow and stretch ourselves, we risk just settling and becoming complacent in heart, mind, and spirit.
The danger of staying within our personal comfort zone when the Lord is trying to broaden our horizons is that we can gradually be lulled into settling for something less rather than striving to reach our full potential. We can lose the ability to see how much more we could do, to the point that we no longer take steps of faith in new directions.
It’s uncomfortable to break through familiar boundaries, and there are risks, because we don’t know how things will play out. But the satisfaction, fulfillment, and excitement of encountering new people, new ideas, and new opportunities is part of what makes us deeper, more purpose-driven individuals. We can never grow to reach our potential unless we are willing to stretch beyond what we think are our limits.
My husband, Peter, once told me about his visit to a physical rehabilitation center where he observed a man who was learning to walk again. The man had been taking tiny shuffling steps, but the therapists decided that it was time for him to do more. The man protested; he was afraid that it was impossible and that he would fall. However, with a therapist on each side of him helping him to walk faster and faster, he realized that he could do it. He may have never moved outside his comfort zone and achieved those steps of progress without others encouraging and challenging him.
The Lord sometimes disrupts our comfort zones and brings new challenges into our lives that enable us to step outside the limitations of our current situation, which at times we’ve placed on ourselves. As we do so, though it may initially be unsettling, we discover new opportunities, relationships and potential that we hadn’t previously thought possible.