Life begins at the end of your comfort zone
"All I have to do is breathe and hang onto Matt’s tank. Matt isn’t going to do anything too crazy."
That was my main thought fifteen feet under water as I looked back at the receding light designating the exit while my friend, Matt, guided me slowly down a cave towards a dark air chamber where we could supposedly surface and breathe.
I hadn’t planned to be hanging onto a scuba tank as a former fighter pilot swam me past two loitering sharks and into the dark at a gorgeous place off Maui invitingly called Five Caves/Five Graves. Nor had I planned to be hanging onto a scuba tank at all. Snorkels are weird enough, and that’s all you need to see lots of darling fish and good-natured turtles cruising around the tropics. But one thing had led to another and now I was headed into the dark, breathing off Matt’s tank much more rapidly than I really needed to, and casting anxious glances back at the free world.
Some people never stop exploring, and those people are having fun. Others want to explore but don’t know the way; a few have even forgotten that they want to explore, and those people need help. We drift towards the latter because most of us are naturally risk-averse creatures of habit. Habit is a reassuring structure that sustains life, but habit without any variation is a song on endless repeat. How do we break it, when we don’t know the way?
We listen for the call beyond our comfort zone from a trusted voice, and we let it awaken us. I could trust Matt because we hadn’t plunged straight into deep water and gone for that cave. He’d gotten me there a step at a time, never forcing but always just offering. That’s how God is.
“Certainty is the mark of the common-sense life: gracious uncertainty is the mark of the spiritual life. To be certain of God means that we are uncertain in all our ways, we do not know what a day may bring forth. This is generally said with a sigh of sadness, it should be rather an expression of breathless expectation. We are uncertain of the next step, but we are certain of God. Immediately we abandon to God, and do the duty that lies nearest, He packs our life with surprises all the time. When we become advocates of a creed, something dies; we do not believe God, we only believe our belief about Him. Jesus said, “Except ye become as little children.” Spiritual life is the life of a child. We are not uncertain of God, but uncertain of what He is going to do next. If we are only certain in our beliefs, we get dignified and severe and have the ban of finality about our views; but when we are rightly related to God, life is full of spontaneous, joyful uncertainty and expectancy.” — (Oswald Chambers, Utmost, April 29: The Graciousness of Uncertainty.)
Matt and I surfaced in the dark air chamber, eventually swam out (I, rather quickly), and of course survived to dive on towards many other delightful surprises including innumerable brilliant fish, a rare eight-foot Manta Ray, and the eager sounds of whales talking to each other. But I would have missed most of that had I declined the call beyond my comfort zone.
Foreign mission trips bring plenty of calls beyond our comfort zone: with people you encounter in an unfamiliar part of the globe; with the members of your team; in the sights, sounds, and smells of a foreign land. These delights are for people who don’t require certainty about the next step, but are ready for abandon to God; to do the duty that lies nearest; to enjoy the surprises that He packs in all the time. Not to be uncertain of God, but to be uncertain of what God is going to do next; to find life full of spontaneous, joyful uncertainty and expectancy.
This is not necessarily safe, but it’s worth diving in with someone you trust. As Mr. Beaver famously said about Aslan in Narnia: “Safe? . . . Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good.”
What call is awakening you right now?
Christopher Schweickert has led several Chiapas teams and regularly stops in Northern California on his way between other places.