Open Up Your Net: Comfort Zone vs Growth Zone

Being pushed beyond our limits isn’t the most fun thing in life. I don’t know about you, but I love being comfortable! Whether it’s wearing comfortable clothing, or crawling into bed after a long day with a good book, nothing beats feeling comfy and cozy. What I have learned though is that while being comfortable feels amazing, the comfort zone doesn’t produce a ton of growth. 

Picture this: if I have a net and barely open it, there is not much I can hold with it. But when I begin to unravel my net and open it up wide, it may take a while but I can hold so much more with it. The same goes for us as children of God: when we do barely enough or just enough to get by, we cannot hold as much. But if we fully open ourselves up to what God wants us to do, we find that this stretching (while sometimes inconvenient) is actually giving us a greater capacity to handle more in our lives.

Isaiah 54:1 says "Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes. For you will spread out to the right and the left; your descendants will dispossess nations and settle in their desolate cities” (New International Version). This is amazing! Israel is told to prepare for fruitfulness that is going to come upon them as a people. This would not have been the time to shrink back into comfort. No, they had to make room for what was to come!

What are you currently doing to stretch out your net or tent? What are you believing God for? I encourage you to pray that the Lord would prepare you for what you are praying for. As the Lord leads you, begin to take those steps out of your comfort zone and into your growth zone. I promise you, it is worth every second. Who knows what lies on the other side of your 'yes'?