Good morning!
As I sit down to write to you this rainy morning I just want to say that I have no idea what I'm about to write, therefore I just pray that the Lord will guide me as I write to write exactly what He wants me to share. Will you pray with me? Father God, I just come to you this morning completely open, open for you to do whatever your will is for today, to give you all glory and honor of every minute. I thank you for everything you have done in my life and the lives of my loved ones. Amen.
Well as you can see I've entitled my post "comfort." I feel like that has been exactly what God has been teaching me. It's funny because when we think of the word comfort we don't necessarily think of it as a bad thing, in fact the definition for comfort is: to give strength and hope to or to ease the grief or trouble of. That sounds pretty good to me. However, when I simply change it to "comfort zone" the definition becomes: the level at which one functions with ease and familiarity. Again, not a bad thing.. but not necessarily a great thing either. In fact if that was the definition of my life, I believe I would have to label my life as rather boring. You see God has been revealing to me that the more we stretch ourselves, the more we trust Him, the more we get out of our comfort zones and follow Him, the greater the reward will be.
I've seen this happen in my life and therefore I can testify. I believe my entire trip to Ohio as a whole was out of my comfort zone. In fact, I remember right before I came being very nervous about it. I mean I didn't feel like any other road was better, and I felt like this was what God wanted me to do but I couldn't see the future. I couldn't picture in my head what it was going to be like when I got here. However, I took that leap of faith and trusted God and the reward has been far greater than anything I could of EVER imagined. As my time is coming to an end here in Ohio, I'm looking back at my journal entries in effort to try and remember what all I've learned and to see how much I've grown. And what I've come to realize is simply that I'm simply less of me and more of Him. Now believe me I still have plenty of struggles to work on, for there will always be struggles while we're here on earth but I think we should forever strive to be less of us and more of Him. I've learned so much from principals of biblical theology to patience to the sweet nature of our God while here in Ohio. And I think as I continue down the road of life I will continue to see more and more of what He taught me while I was here in Ohio. I don't think I've ever experienced a season of my life where I learned so much in such a short period of time.
Just this past Tuesday we finished up with our "Seize the Summer" Tour. This is the 3rd year that Fill the Earth has coordinated this event. Fill the Earth is a ministry collaboration of Off the Wall (that of which I am a part of) and Polen Band. While on Seize the Summer we traveled to 13 different locations in 6 states within 2 and 1/2 weeks. There was 13 of us total in a 15 passenger van, myself ,Jill, and 11 guys! The mission of seize the summer was to rev up people and get them excited for the summer. So often we think of summer as a vacation or time off from our normal way of life, so we were encouraging everyone to make sure they're not taking a break from Jesus. To seize the summer and all the opportunities to be bold, to tell others about Christ as stated in Ephesians 6:19-20 "Pray for me, that whenever I speak words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should." I love that word "fearlessly" because I think it's so true, there have been many of times in my own life that I have been scared to talk to someone about Jesus because I didn't know how they would react or didn't know if I could say the right things. So I just loved the message and mission that we spread to all of these youth throughout these churches. Now, I realize you're probably wondering where my part came in with all of this, since you know, I'm not exactly known for my singing (I'm still waiting for my big break. :) Well at each event we would have set up and tear down which always took a couple of hours depending on how much we had to do so I played a part in that, as well as the drama team. Each event consisted of three segments: music, drama and a message. As part of the drama team I performed a skit titled "comfort." Ironic, right? Now let me just say before we left for this trip I was really dreading it, I'll admit I had a bad attitude. But it was because the entire thing was out of my comfort zone, I hardly knew most of the people I was traveling with, I didn't know what I was going to be doing so I couldn't possibly be good at it, I kept getting nervous and forgetting my lines and etc. A couple days before we left Jill had pointed out how ironic it was that I was doing a skit on "comfort" when the entire tour was out of my comfort zone. God can be so clever sometimes can't he! And although I didn't admit it to her at that moment because I was stuck in my stubbornness I knew this was more than ironic. My skit was about a girl who was excited to do God's work, but when it came time and Jesus told her what he wanted her to do she said no because it was out of her comfort zone...
As the tour officially ended Tuesday night there was a part of me that was rather sad. It's hard to believe that just a few short weeks ago I was completely dreading something that turned out to be so completely amazing. Had I not gotten out of my comfort zone to be a part of this wonderful experience I would have never gained the memories that I will forever hold so near and dear to my heart. Not only did everyone on tour become like family but we all learned so much about one another and about God, we laughed, we cried, we encouraged one another, but most of all glorified God.
Last night as I was talking to my Dad on the phone I found myself telling him the exact words in which the Lord had just taught me. I told him "Dad, you're living in fear. And living in fear is not living for the Lord. If you want things to forever be how they are then don't change anything and stay in your comfort zone, but then you must accept things for how they are because it's your choice to stay there. Or you can take a leap of faith, trust God, and He will reward you for it. But it's up to you. It may not comfortable, but it's so worth it." Now, I shared that because I want you to know that it was a prayer of mine while we were on this trip that I would be able to share with someone about Jesus and help them to know Him better. I never expected it to be someone I knew, let alone my Dad but I'm so happy that it was, and that God answered my prayer. I think too often we just assume that when it comes to helping someone or telling someone about Jesus it has to be someone we don't know, but we can't limit it to that. We need to stop and take a look around us, because sometimes it's the people who are closest to us who may need it the most.
Whew, that sure was a lot for not knowing what I was going to say, huh? :) Well to sum it up, I just pray for all of you. I pray especially that you will be challenged to step out of your comfort zone not only to see what Jesus has in store for you, but also that he will bestow upon you the honor and the privilege to share with someone about Jesus Christ.
Love you all!
Abby
