Good morning, Five Minute Families. We are so glad you are joining us for the third and final devotion in our comfort zone series. If you missed the other two, please check them out on your favorite podcast app or head over to our website clearviewretreat.org.

Comfort zone has its risks and benefits, and as we mentioned at the beginning of this series, the comfort zone can be a tool. If the family comfort zone is used wisely, it can expand your life while keeping you grounded and joyful.

Bfreecoaching on reddit wrote it well, so we won’t even try to paraphrase it. They wrote, “Getting out of your comfort zone can inspire you to make changes, but your comfort zone is the sustainable component that empowers you to stick with those changes and receive their full benefits in the long-term. Your comfort zone is where you feel loved, supported, appreciated, valued, secure and worthy; and staying there is how you thrive. So instead of leaving your comfort zone — expand it — so you feel more comfortable doing more things. Then you can create the life you want through comfort and satisfaction, instead of discomfort and fear.”

So, we can see the tool analogy we mentioned. Truly, the perfect use of the comfort zone is to find the place wherein the family is applying God’s Word and acting in ways that honor Him while knowing their individual worth by simply being made in His image. If the bad of the comfort zone is ‘feeling over doing or being,’ and the benefits demonstrate the ‘being over doing or feeling,’ then the best application of the family comfort zone is encouraging ‘Doing WHILE being.’ Expand your comfort zone.

Here are but five verses to get you started:
Jeremiah 33:3 “Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known.”

Galatians 5:1-26 “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery”

2 Timothy 2:15 “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.”

Mark 16:15 “And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.”

James 1:22 “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only.”

As your family gains confidence in the routine aspects of the comfort zone and encouraging daily family life, each of you is able to point your focus on other more challenging tasks, tasks that will likely take more mental and physical energy – tasks to expand and enrich your comfort zone. Likewise, after a family comfort zone expansion challenge, meaning your family has pushed the boundaries of the typical comfort zone, either individually or together, you get to then return to better known situations and be renewed to continue the cycle of rejuvenation and expansion of your comfort zone.

2 Peter 3:18 tells us to “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” Growing in grace involves expansion of the comfort zone. It involves loving others who are unknown to you, it involves facing your fears together, it involves being devalued by outsiders but remembering your intrinsic worth. Keeping your focus on God’s truth allows you to feel appreciated even if everyone on the outside of your family comfort zone does not appreciate you. And, so much more.

Now, lest you think you have nothing to give, remember 1 Corinthians 12:5-7, “There are different ministries, but the same Lord. And there are different activities, but the same God works all of them in each person. A manifestation of the Spirit is given to each person for the common good.” You have been given an aspect of God’s spirit to work in His kingdom – in your family and in your community.

1 timothy 4:14-15 admonishes us not to “neglect the gift that is in” us and to “Practice these things; be committed to them, so that your progress may be evident to all.”

Ask yourselves these questions, “Has my family rightly applied the concept of the family comfort zone?”

If not, “how have we failed to create a supportive, loving, godly comfort zone for our family?” OR “how have we allowed the comfort zone to hold us back?”

If you do have a good and godly family comfort zone, how can you begin to expand it for your individual goods, collective good, and most importantly, for God’s kingdom?

As you contemplate your family comfort zone, we encourage you to pray for and with one another. Be blessed!