Path of Most Resistance
Theme of the Week: Hang on to Trust
Thursday, September 18, 2008
 1 of 1
Key Bible Verse: In your strength I can crush an army; with my God I can scale any wall (Psalm 18:29). Bonus Reading: Psalm 56:1-11
Fears keep us bottled up in our comfort zones. We wrestle with questions like, "What if God tells me to do something I don't want to do? What if he asks me to go somewhere unfamiliar, or to do something that is financially radical?"
Fears are normal. God understands them. But we can't let them hold us back from doing his will.
Once, our board of elders had identified a clear need, yet knew that moving to meet it might jeopardize our church's entire future. Late one night, after lengthy discussion and a reaffirmation that we wanted to move ahead under God's direction, we had a closing prayer time. The elder next to me prayed, "O God, I'm shaking in my boots. Please do whatever it is you want to do with this church, but I'm afraid of what that might mean."
Trusting God doesn't come easy to us. That's why it's called trust: because it goes against our natural inclinations.
Not long after that honest prayer, that elder sold his business so that he could leverage his last 15 or 20 years for ministry. He deliberately turned his back on our society's biggest comfort zone—retirement—and sold out to invest his life in other people for the kingdom of God.
—Chip Ingram in Holy Ambition
My Response: To break out of a confining comfort zone, I need to …
Thought to Apply: Courage is fear that has said its prayers. —Karl Barth (Swiss theologian)
Adapted from Holy Ambition (Moody, 2002) by permission.
Copyright © 2008 by the author or Christianity Today International/Men of Integrity magazine.
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Teach me, Lord, to accept that You are in control, even when I can't make sense of what's happening to me.
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