Are you letting being comfortable get in the way of being your best? Do you hold yourself back because you simply don’t know what you’re missing?
Full Transcript
In his book The Weight of Glory, C.S. Lewis says,
“Our Lord finds our desires not too strong but too weak. We are half hearted creatures fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us. Like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.”
What he’s saying here is that we are creatures that are very easily satisfied. If we feel comfortable where we are, we often don’t want to change anything because it’s so comfortable. The reason is because it’s fun to play in the mud when you’re a little kid. If someone invites you let’s go out for a holiday at the sea, you’re not sure you want to because you’ve never been there, you don’t know what it’s like and you’re having a lot of fun right now. Of course, you can’t imagine how much better it would be at the sea, how much more fun you would have, how much more there would be to see and to do than what you’re currently doing. Consequently, you want to stay where you’re comfortable. But you’ll miss out on a lot of joy.
Life mission is like a day at the sea. It’s an invitation from God to have greater joy–through opportunities and experiences we’ve never had! But we don’t know what that would look like and we don’t know how much better it would be. It’s comfortable where we are and the path to life mission is confusing–we feel too busy with everything that’s going on to make life mission a priority and we miss out on an invitation for a lot of joy.
I want to tell you a little story from the book Christy. It’s one of the many wonderful, awesome books that we use in The Mission Driven Mom Academy and it’s a true story about a young woman at the turn of the 20th century. She had attended a meeting and the speaker said they needed a schoolteacher for poor backwoods children in the Appalachian mountains. She just felt called to do it and so she took a big risk and traveled there alone to teach these children.
At one point in the book she had already had trials and struggles. She was considering whether or not she should stay and even felt confused about whether or not she had done the right thing because it had gotten so hard. She went to see a woman named Ms. Alice Henderson who was a mentor to her and they talked about Christy’s struggles.
One of the things that Ms. Henderson told Christy to do was to claim her blessings! She read this scripture to Christy,
“Give and it shall be given unto you, good measure, pressed down shaken together and running over shall men give into your bosom.”
Ms. Henderson then explained that as you taken advantage of that great promise and claim the blessings God has for you, you’ll have more blessings than you can even enjoy.
Christy asks, “Well, what do you mean by claim?”
So Ms. Henderson explained that when America was expanding West and there was free land available, if you wanted that land you had to move out to the property. You had to actually stake your claim–put a stake in the ground and say, “This is my property.” Then you had to stay there and improve the property in order to own it long term. But you had to go on faith, you had to take the journey out. You had to find the land you wanted. You had to stake your claim and you had to stay there to get those blessings of land and opportunity that you wanted for yourself.
Christy responds with even more questions: What does that mean? Why is that important? Why is that something that I should do?
Ms. Henderson then elaborates,
“Christy, evil is real and powerful. It has to be fought, not explained away and not fled. God is against evil all the way so each of us has to decide where we stand. How we’re going to live our lives. We can try to persuade ourselves that evil doesn’t exist, live for ourselves and wink at evil. We can try to compromise with it. Keep quiet about it or say it’s none of our business or we can choose God’s side. We can listen for his orders on strategy against the evil no matter how horrible it is and know that he can transform it.”
So she takes this to heart. She thinks that Ms. Henderson must really be teaching her something important and she wants to try it out. She wants to see if it’s possible for her to actually claim blessings for herself and for others. She decides to pray about it and she has a great idea! She starts by writing one letter which quickly turns into thirty-five letters. She writes to different businesses that she knows from back home. She tells them what needs they have in the mission that she’s in. She requests all kinds of different supplies and lets them know that anything they feel like donating would be wonderful.
Within just a few weeks they start getting word that supplies are being sent. She discovers that there’s a concert grand piano that a piano company is sending out. Another company is sending a harvester wagon. There’s a horse, food, a cable line for a telephone, shoes, mattresses, bedding and other supplies.
The mission received all kinds of blessings because she claimed them! She took action–she thought, she prayed and she decided, “I need to do something to see if God’s going to help me in this work I feel like He wants me to do.”
And you know what? He did. God helped her in the thing that she felt called to do because He always does!
So my challenge to you is to consider: Are you playing in mud puddles? Is your life revolving around the same kinds of problems that need to be solved with true principles? Are you busy? I just keep talking to moms who are busy, busy, busy but is your life full of what’s most important? Are you just comfortable where you are or are you actively seeking and claiming the blessings God has for you? Trusting that the joy will be there. Trusting that when you get to the sea it will be worth the journey there. That’s my challenge to you.
Go get the book The Mission Driven Life found here on the site. Start learning about the ten Boom family and their mission journey. Start asking yourself questions about what you can do to start living the 7 Laws of Life Mission. Begin pursuing your own life mission. Remember that if you will prepare yourself God has a great mission in store for you!