Beware the Comfort Zone!

Comfort zone: That comfortable place in our lives where we can finally sit back, rest and coast a little (my definition). I now believe it also fertile ground for the devil to interfere with God's plan to prosper and bless us, so I am burdened in my heart to share this (rather long) message with you.

But before that... We have been at church camp, where we were much blessed by an anointed speaker - Pastor Henry Madava. Pastor Madava is a Zimbabwean who heads a church in Kiev, Ukraine, which in itself is a interesting testamony of the work of the Holy Spirit. Pastor Henry has the gift of teaching (he makes complex things simple) and the gift of healing. You can read some of the amazing healing testamonies from our church camp here. Truly He that is in us is greater than he that is in this world, and the Holy Spirit never rests from working against the works of the devil. Praise God!

As is often the case with anointed speakers, many things Henry spoke about jumped out at me. In particular, his preaching on Joseph and how to be a champion for God continued to play in my mind for many days after the camp. The Scripture says to test everything that we are taught (1 Thessalonians 5:21), and upon prayerful reflection on his sermon on Joseph, my current readings on David, and the ups and downs in my walk with God, I am convinced that the comfort zone is a dangerous place to be. In fact, being stretched and tested seems to be a pre-requisite for growth in the Lord.

When I look at great men that God used - like Moses, Joseph, David, etc - He never did allow them to get into any sort of comfort zone. At no point were they able to sit back and "coast" for a while. For a few years now, I have been asking God to make me more and more like Joseph and David. Joseph was blessed with success in whatever he put his hands to, and because of the Lord's favour upon him, he was a blessing to his family, boss, king and even to the nations around him. David was arguably the greatest king the Israelites ever had, and he had such initmacy with God that he was called a man after God's own heart (Acts 13:22).

But sometimes I forget that David (and Joseph) did not have it easy in life. David started fighting and killing lions and bears (1 Samuel 17:34-36) when most of us were struggling to get to school on time! Even after his famous victory over Goliath, he had the privilege to be appointed the royal harp player to a king who would occasionally try to kill him with a spear when David was playing for him (1 Samuel 18:10-11). After being anointed as king by God (thru Samuel), he still had to spend many years escaping/hiding from King Saul who was bent on killing him despite his repeated demonstrations of allegiance.

Even after King Saul died, and David was finally crowned as the new king, he never really did rule in peace. The bible tells that David had to contend with the shifting alliances and personal agendas that we now call politics. For instance, David had to appoint Joab as his army commander, a man of unsavoury character who committed pre-medidated murder. Joab was a man who stooped so low as to abuse God's law to lure Abner to the gates of Hebron - one of the cities of refuge God gave to the Levites to show mercy to innocent men who accidentally kills another - and kill him there. Joab lured Abner to Hebron (despite the fact that David has reconciled with Abner and made a covenant with him) and murdered him right at the gate (2 Samuel 3:20-27), so that he could have cold blooded revenge without facing the consequences. In fact, Joab was also the one who finally killed David's son, Absalom, despite strict instruction from David to his army not to harm him. Imagine being David and having to live with one such as this leading all your army - it truly gives me pause when I start to complain about "problematic" staff that I have to manage at work!

And when did David finally fall, and kill one of his most loyal and dilligent soldiers to steal his wife Bathsheba? It was "at the time when kings go out to battle", but David sent Joab and stayed behind in the comfort of Jerusalem (2 Samuel 11:1). Perhaps that was when David finally got into a comfort zone, when his armies was at war, but he felt that he need not go with them anymore. Instead, he was in his house in Jerusalem, when he arose from his bed, walked on the roof of his house, and saw Bathsheba, which then led to a whole string of sin, deception and finally murder. Compare that to Bathsheba's husband, Uriah, who refused to go into the comfort of his own house despite being called back to Jerusalem by King David, because his loyalty to his commander and his fellow troops would not allow him to do so, when they were all still out there in the battlefield (2 Samuel 11:6-13). For his sin, David paid a heavy price and lost a son.

Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to explain why I feel there is cause for us to beware the comfort zone - just like in Tri training, if we are not stretching, we are probably not growing stronger. But the message is not all doom and gloom, because even though tests in life come to tempt us to give up on God, He will not allow us to be tempted beyond what we can bear (1 Corinthians 10:13), and we know that what does not destroy us, only makes us stronger. Amen!