“The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.” Genesis 12: 1

     When I think of Abram whom later was called Abraham by God (Genesis 17: 4); he was just a man whom God asked to do many things out of his ‘comfort zone’ so I believe he had to love God very much but regardless of how much I believe Abraham loved God, it was nothing in comparison to God’s Love for Abraham. I think Abraham was pushed to the limits beyond his own understanding. I have thought many times all the things God asked him to do from leaving his home, his family and even to the point of asking him to sacrifice his beloved son, Isaac. I often think how lonely he must have felt and how much out of his comfort zone he was?

      God stretched Abraham’s love and faith in him to the max. Yet he blessed him beyond anything Abraham could have imagined. He made promises to Abraham that was unimaginable, such as telling him he would give him a son (Genesis 17: 16). Even Abraham found what God was telling him to be humorous as it tells us in Genesis 17: 17 that Abraham said to himself, “Will a son be born to a man a hundred years old? Will Sarah bear a child at the age of ninety?”

      Yet God never left Abraham, he was there with him through every test presented to him. Abraham was never forsaken by God, just as he will never forsake us. All the promises God told him, God followed-through but it was in God’s time. Sometimes, God pushes us out of our ‘comfort zones’ to the point to where we cannot understand. We are human, and sometimes we want to run from what God is asking us to do. We want to run back to our ‘comfort zones’, regardless if our comfort zones makes us stressed and uncomfortable, at least it’s something we know, right? Yet that still nagging voice within us tells us to do this or that, could this be God stretching us?

     In my life experiences, when I have refused to listen to that ‘nagging feeling’ because of fear or because it took me out of my ‘comfort zone’, God has always shown me he is still there pushing me forward in the direction he wants me to go. However; I have also learned that God is relentless when he wants me to do something. I have to laugh because I have learned I cannot win with God. When he wants me to do something, I just as well submit and do exactly what he wants. God will test our faith and trust in him, this is what makes us stronger.

     When you take that first step out of your comfort zone, I know it can be hard. Don’t go back to the ‘comfort zone’ because God wants better for you.  He is waiting for you to take that step again toward him. Just keep moving forward, be an Abraham that allows him to stretch you in your faith to things you cannot even conceive to understand because just maybe, you could be another Abraham and what God has for you is beyond anything you could even imagine, all you have to do is keep moving forward and do what God is asking you to do. I promise he will walk with you, he will be your strength and he will give you things he promised you, he will prove to you how much he loves you by fullfilling his promises. You just have to take that step, to trust, to believe and to claim it.