Danger in the Comfort Zone

“I just wanted to talk to you about that class situation—to get your perspective on it,” my co-teacher stated. She had taken me out for lunch “to get away from the school for awhile.”

I sighed inwardly, trying to rethink my arguments. “Well, I just don’t see how I can work that new student in. It’s hard enough to handle the group and take an interest in each one.” I could envision myself trying to keep pace with that long row of children facing me each morning.

“You need to learn to read them. To be spontaneous.”

“But I’m not spontaneous. I can’t think unless I’m organized,” I almost pleaded. As I reconstructed in my mind that feeling of near panic, a new insight came to me. “It’s just the way I feel when I’m in any large group,” I tried to explain. “When I’m in grocery stores I never notice people around me. I shut everyone out and just focus on getting the job done. And that’s the way it is when I work with a larger class.”

“I know it is out of your comfort zone,” she said, “but you have the job and I believe the Lord can help you. You need to think about the individual. That’s what we’re here for. Just relax and take it from the students if they are getting it or not.”

Ha, I thought, maybe that’s easy for you to do; I really don’t fit the job. But I had to agree that she had a point. Could I profess to rely on God for teaching and limit Him in this matter, by my doubts? By clinging to “my comfort zone”? This was a new aspect to consider.

I had never thought seriously about a comfort zone being bad. In fact, I argued that I wasn’t really suited to a position in which I wasn’t good or comfortable. Oh, I knew that had some limitations. Teaching itself was something that both fitted me and filled me with an overwhelming sense of need. No, I couldn’t do it without the Lord’s help any day. But, well, it was just more down my line to work one-on-one. I couldn’t be effective if I had to manage more than three or four students, could I?

But this school with the Meek and Lowly One was taking me farther than I had anticipated. The still, small voice was pointing out a way that was untried and steep, and it said “This is the way, walk ye in it.”* (Isaiah 30:21) Would I rise to the challenge? I weighed Jesus’ might and ability for my weak and dreading heart, and found myself lacking. “My Comfort Zone” was in a losing fight. As I realized, its supposed importance was really nothing more than my natural tendency’s plea for support, so I handed it over to the Master.

“I’m ready for the next step up,” I said, and it seemed I could see myself as a student before Him. Was I the student I would want to teach? “If You think I’m ready for higher course material, why should I balk at the extra work? I’m sure it’s just what I need,” I said. It is every teacher’s heartbreak to see a child who refuses to learn, and I didn’t want to be one.

A picture of Jesus standing on the crowded Galilean hillside came to my mind. My Master had often been the focus of hundreds of eyes. Would I have seen Him pass me by with a hurried glance and “teach the lesson,” or would He be speaking directly to me, in my need? Oh, personal experience talks! And how much I knew I needed to learn from Him. It ashamed me to think I had resisted this call of Love itself. Now old “comfort zone” seemed a new foe; a point of danger. Can it be otherwise to a soul that has given their heart to Jesus?

The application of the new lesson wasn’t nearly so hard as I had imagined. The Lord gave me the key as I began my week: “faith which worketh by love,”* (Galatians 5:6) which said to me, “If you do it out of Love to Me, don’t you believe I’m there to help you each step of the way?” He could, and He did. As I set out to love each face in that long row of seven precious children, the panicky feeling flew away. It was no long “teaching the lesson” (desperately, quickly, efficiently), but, “I have something to help you.” The “you” was my new focus. And an absolutely necessary one, I knew without a doubt. Teacher was right.

As I look back one week in the lesson, I’m prepared to learn more. How often the Lord would change our own reasoning around and give us His thoughts. I can’t think of “comfort zones” in the same way now. Not that my feelings don’t cozy up to them just as before, but my eyes are opened. It is as Jesus said, “Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition?”* (Matthew 15:3) My tradition, too, had gotten in the way. How many other “pet ideas” and instilled attitudes about life will I have to cut down and hand over to my Master? Probably many, but I am willing. “He knows His stuff,” as some would say. And that “stuff” is taking me where I want to be—at home with Him on high.