Moving Beyond Comfortable

Ever notice how when you start to exercise your body rebels?  The soreness of your muscles may gently urge you to ‘skip a day’ or ‘do less.’  Or, if you’re anything like me, your body may scream ‘you shouldn’t do this,’ stay on the couch,’ or ‘you should eat a chicken fried steak and mashed potatoes!’  Okay, so maybe my stomach and my muscles are in cahoots.  Either way, sometimes when we break a bad habit or a bad relationship we are leaving something we’re used to and that we have grown comfortable doing (or not doing).  And while we may see that staying in the old routine is not good for us, moving on can be scary and seem worse than staying put.

I can recall being in a relationship that was unquestionably bad for me.  What happily started as a pair of people with common interests had turned into a game of deceit and manipulation.  Suddenly I was in a relationship where not only was I being treated poorly, but I was learning not to trust and to treat others poorly too!  It was a change I could feel and one that others around me could see.  But, what about perseverance?  Shouldn’t I ride it out and try change the direction of things?  I could even reference the bible, James 1:12, and standing steadfast in trials.  Sometimes we use this to rationalize staying in something that is comfortable, albeit unhealthy for us.  You see, while we can and should stick with things, even when they get tough and we can pray for someone’s heart to change – we don’t change hearts.

Think about this:  When you meet someone and you decide for whatever reason that you don’t wish to have a relationship with them, that you don’t like them in a certain way… nothing they do can change how you feel about them.  Only when you decide to look at them in a different way or to consider them differently, can your thoughts of them change.  So, it’s not up to us to change someone else’s heart, but rather it is only our own hearts that we can ask to reconsider how we feel about others.

So, while moving on from an old routine or a comfortable relationship, trust the Lord (Proverbs 3:5-6).  For me, it’s about doing what is best for me and my family.  For several years we stood firm in order to show our children the lessons of honoring your commitments and overcoming adversity.  Although we may have entered into a relationship years ago that was happy and even enjoyable, it changed to something that was negative and detrimental to our wellbeing.  While choosing to end that relationship was painful for all of us, we were guided to that decision by the one who matters most, and in the end I take more comfort in Him than any old routine.

Isaiah 43:18-19

Forget the former things, don’t dwell on the past.  See!  I am doing a new thing.  Now it springs up.  Don’t you feel it?  I am making a way in.