If Your Growing In God You Will Always Be Outside of Your Comfort Zone
“Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.
Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low;
the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain.” (Isaiah 40:1,4)
The way of the transgressor is hard. Those of us who travelled that road far too long know that it’s a long dusty road and we often got weary with the load. And if you once knew God and slipped away from Him you also know that it’s often a bumpy road back to the Father’s house.
Building roads is a back breaking job and God has built us a road back to him. Sometimes it takes you through the fire and flood of lost friends and finances; but who cares what the price as long as you get back to God. Like Jesus said; “What does it profit a person if they gain the whole world and lose their own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?” If you have to plow through snow and hail and sleet, trudge through rain and mud or crawl through death’s valley and used your last breath to climb over the walls of a grand canyon; whatever it took it was better than losing your own soul.
Making A New Road Is Never An Easy Task.
Think of the effort that it took to make the first Transcontinental Railroad. The “Pacific Railroad” and later known as the “Overland Route.” It was a 1,900-mile continuous railroad line constructed between 1863 and 1869. It was built to connect-up with the Eastern U.S. rail network. It was a transportation phenomenon, that connected America coast to coast.
Think of the sacrifice it took to get the job done. The Transcontinental Railroad was built almost entirely by hand. Workers drove spikes into mountains, filled the holes with black powder, and blasted through the rock inch by inch. Handcarts moved the drift from cuts to fills. Bridges, including one 700 feet long and 126 feet in the air, had to be constructed to cross streams. Thousands of workers, including Irish and German immigrants, former Union and Confederate soldiers, freed slaves, and especially Chinese immigrants played a part in the construction. In fact, Chinese laborers first went to work for the Central Pacific as it began crossing California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains in 1865. At one point, the work was so labor intensive that Chinese workers were lowered in hand-woven reed baskets to drill blasting holes in the rock. They placed the explosives in each hole, lit the fuses, and were, hopefully, pulled up before the powder was detonated. Explosions, freezing temperatures, and avalanches in the High Sierras killed hundreds. Many worked and sacrificed to make that way through the mountains, the valleys, and the desert!
In the spiritual realm Jesus did the same thing for us. In His grace he did not leave us where He found us. He built a road for us through the valley of despair, a highway of grace through the desert of sin, constructed bridges over our mountain tops of desolation, built a boardwalk through the barriers and briers of our hopelessness. When we were lost in the exile of our sin and knew not the way out we discovered that the way home was not on any map or GSP. It was only when Christ the Good Shepherd came into our life that we discovered the way out was not complex at all. Jesus simply said, “Follow Me! Keep your eyes on me. “I am the way the truth and the life.” You don’t have to be that smart to follow the leader. He knows the way through the wilderness. He knows the way back home. It’s a blood stained road, sprinkled with the blood of his nail scarred feet. Millions of pilgrims have walked this road long before you and I ever walked it.
“Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.”
With God there is a double portion of comfort. He gives double comfort to people like you and me who deserve the lest of His favor. Not only do we receive a double comfort but it’s a comfort that will last until we take our last step and set foot upon the redeemed streets of the New Jerusalem.
Now I can’t make you believe in God, only the Holy Spirit can do that but if you are hopelessly wandering in the desert of despair or plowing through a broken relationship; if the chasm of your life seems more like cul-de-sac of despair from which there is no escape, if the snow capped mountains of your dreams seem forever beyond your reach; rush into his waiting arms as did the prodigal son. Every one of us stumbles along the way but his comforting hand is always open to catch us. His comforting news is, “I Have come that you might have life and have it more abundantly.
He took the blame. He evened the score by paying sin’s eternal price. , “For our sake God made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21)
You are not walking life’s obstacle course alone. There is always the comfort of knowing that God is watching over you. As the great prophet Isaiah said, “This also comes from the Lord of hosts, Who is wonderful in counsel and excellent in guidance.”
He’s only A Prayer Away!
Pastor Bryant