Obedience OVER Comfort

“Acting in obedience isn’t always comfortable…that’s why it usually feels hard.”

I’ve been at this new blogging thing for 15 weeks now…so just a little over 3 months. Obviously, I am still very “new” and will be for awhile as I find my voice and footing.

But, before I type another word, I just wanted to say “thank you.”

Thank you for being here in this little space of the blogosphere with me. I subscribe to a handful of blogs myself and receive their emails straight to my inbox. Many of them are clearly positioned as a “Home Decor Blog” and others are clearly defined as a “Faith Blog” serving up heaps of spiritual encouragement to their readers.

If you have been here for a few weeks now…you have probably noticed I am a bit of a BLEND of both of these themes. I am a little bit of home, set on the foundation of Jesus, sprinkled with a whole lot of real, raw honest transparency – straight up.

I have never been really good at coloring within the lines, keeping my day, my work or my schedule all neat and tidy and on topic. And? “Go hard or go home,” spread-sheet calculated, laser focused goals have never been my thing.

I am more of a take it one day at a time, do the best that I can to lean into the daily bread God has blessed me with today.

So? I tend to get down, get low, consult with God on what we will share together week to week and try my best to obey His Holy Spirit tugging to go in the direction I feel led.

This whole blogging journey has been birthed from an act of obedience to follow a God nudge. As much as these posts are “Notes For My Daughters”…they are also a love letter back to Jesus to thank Him for his provision and discernment in my life.

And the recent topics shared on the blog? Accepting and following the tug on my heart to dial up the transparency? It can feel uncomfortable at first, but also very, very right.

But, here’s the thing…when we live our lives obediently to what God calls us out to do…it is NOT always going to feel comfortable. In fact, a surrendered life…SHOULD feel uncomfortable. It should feel different. It should call us out.

What I have learned is a surrendered life…leads to a change in priorities, a shift in lifestyle, because inner work and rearranging of the heart is going to cause a little disruption…and most likely a little discomfort.

But…when we truly let go?

When we truly decide to live a life in obedience to what God calls us to step into and do the work He has assigned us…the temporary discomfort from the withdrawal of the worldly warmth we used to tend to look to for approval is quickly outshined by a life lived in the light.

OBEDIENCE

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comfort

I am learning that choosing obedience OVER comfort eventually leads to a peaceful, fulfilling feeling inside that is more satisfying than any fleeting worldly approval could ever deliver.

“Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.”

Romans 12:2 NLT

https://youtu.be/U6R6Bs2juVE

“There is no competition for the plan God has for you.”

The above video clip is from a fb post I shared on January 3rd, before I launched my blog. I was staring the “2020 New Year” and all of it’s pressures right in the face. Pressures all around us to re-invent, re-energize, re-organize, re-fresh…to Do and BE all of the things.

You can read the brief fb post here.

The point I wanted to make then and the point I still want to make today is this. In the midst of re-building and slowly starting again after the devastating disruptions that COVID has caused in our homes and all around us…There is STILL NO competition for the plan God has for you. The only person who can cheat us out of our God-given future…is ourselves.

It is literally YOU vs. YOU.

The most common way we cheat ourselves out of the good plans God has for us?

By choosing to stay comfortable VS acting obediently towards that tugging conviction in your heart where God is prompting you to trust Him and let go.

Living out that prompting and following His lead is going to look different for all of us and IT SHOULD.

A few years ago, while leading a Stella & Dot leadership retreat I led a reflective identity exercise I created to help women define success on their own terms. A dear friend and business colleague reminded me of this exercise recently when she shared it to her IG stories and tagged me as she has adopted the exercise and is implementing it now by sharing it with others in her inspiring coaching business. (If you’re looking to uncover your unique skill set, check out her confidence & clarity bootcamp by connecting with my friend on IG here.)

The exercise I designed was inspired by my Mom and her grief journey after my brother died tragically and suddenly at 13 years old.

My Mom joined a grief share group called “Compassionate Friends.”

I have listened to my Mom explain what the sharing in that sacred group did for her many, many times. She would always liken it to a metaphor of walking into a room and imagining everyone putting their shoes into a pile and then sitting down in a circle with their shoes in the center of the circle, while they shared their stories of loss.

Of course they didn’t do actually take their shoes off…but this is what did happen…

They sat together, listened close, wept, hugged and shouldered one another’s searing loss as a group. At the end of it though, if they HAD indeed put their shoes in the middle of a circle…my Mom always said that at the end of the sharing…no matter how hard your story felt, how dark the hole of sadness seemed you were in, how alone and wrong the death you were suffering felt like it was suffocating you…she always said you would want to take back your own shoes, slip them on and walk home in them.

Because, your story is your story…no one else’s.

In other words, after hearing everyone else’s story…you would want to take your grief story and walk home in it….every single step, hard, cutting and all, because it belonged to you.

You never know what people are facing every day…and even at my Mom’s lowest, most sad time she accepted her story, walked obediently into her future as a mother who others could come to in the years ahead as a lighthouse for hope.

My Mom gently and slowly embraced her story, while writhing in unimaginable discomfort and aching pain…she stepped into and through it. Through her obedience in showing up in the face of loss, her walk through tragedy equipped her to be used by God to help so many others that would come through her life.

So on that leadership retreat? We actually did what my Mom imagined metaphorically happened in her grief share group years ago.

No, we were not grieving the loss of an actual person dear to us…but as a community?

I felt the grief that comes with the thief of comparison in a hustle harder world…threatening to rob us from owning our own beautiful truths.

I felt burdened, that so many of us were grieving the loss of themselves.

Somehow, we were losing our own identity to the death grip pressures of the world to MEASURE UP to someone else’s idea of success.

With a group of leaders sitting around me, I handed out a bundle of rulers and sharpies. And then?

Yep. I asked everyone to take off their shoes, pile them in the middle of our circle.

Then, I asked them to jot down on the back of the rulers…what DEFINES SUCCES for them. What is THEIR personal definition of success?

I jotted down things like:

The ability to “keep first things first,” “being able to work flexibly,” “being a role-model,” and “inspiring others” and “paying the mortgage.”

After everyone was finished writing down their own version of what success looked and felt like for them. I asked them to pick a pair of shoes that did NOT belong to them, from the pile in the middle, slip them on and stand up in another woman’s pair of shoes.

And? As each of us tried to stand in someone else’s shoes…yep you guessed it.

We all felt ridiculous.

in zero seconds flat, we knew we didn’t belong walking in someone else’s shoes.

Either the shoes were too big or too small, causing pain or we were simply tripping as we walked, and some just fell straight off.

Quite simply..the shoes didn’t fit the feet…or the person.

Now, of course we don’t often go around picking up someone else’s shoes to walk around in. Now that would be ridiculous.

You know what else is ridiculous?

Picking up someone else’s measuring stick of success and trying to fit into it by measuring our own life dreams, desires and heart-goals against their version, scope and size of success.

Living a life of obedience…asks us to stop holding up someone else’s measuring stick next to our life. To stop trying to fit into someone else’s steps of success and tripping over the comparison trap while we try to squeeze into their scale.

And instead?

Obedience asks us to lay the measuring stick down and pick up the call in our hearts that God placed inside.

“And if anyone longs to be wise, ask God for wisdom and he will give it! He won’t see your lack of wisdom as an opportunity to scold you over your failures but he will overwhelm your failures with his generous grace.”

James 1:5

God desires to use our brokenness, our vulnerabilities, our unique make-up to influence the world around us.

We literally can’t do that if we look and act exactly like everyone around us.

We were never meant to measure up and fit into what does not belong to us.

Friend, I don’t know what trials you are facing today…I know we live in a hurting and broken world. I also know that when we tune our eyes and ears to God’s frequency and pray specifically, He hears us and through His spirit answers us in the quiet of our minds.

No matter how long it has been since He has heard your voice…His desire is still the same. For you to know Him and know His good plans for your life.

If we are willing, He will use our battle scars as a symbol of hope.

A light in the world is illuminated when we obediently accept the calling to be used by Him, step into our own story, walk it out in our own shoes along the path He has laid out for us.

May we turn on more lights together.

Father God,

Thank you for loving us so well. Thank you for knowing us better than anyone. Thank you for reminding us that the only place we need to look to find our identity is to look to you.

Thank you for the ways that you lead, guide and direct us. Help us to be obedient in accepting the calling you put on our hearts, even when it is uncomfortable. Help us to trust you and know that the plans you have for us are good.

Amen.

Living on a prayer,

Heather