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I do have a comfort zone. When I used to play tennis, something I give occasional thought to attempting again, I wanted an opponent that played at a similar skill level to mine. Although I have a love for music, I know my limits when it comes to participation, or more accurately, presentation. Whether it is in the kitchen or the classroom or playing games or expending energy or strangely, even shopping, I am very aware of what I feel comfortable doing. That sense of comfort zone carries over too to my interactions with people. Just being in a group of people who are unknown to me can immobilize my body in the nearest corner or cause a muteness that wants to stutter out, "Believe it or not, I really am a teacher who uses words in front of people all the time." Send me to the court house for jury duty or to a specialist for health needs, and I can wonder, "Who is this person inside of me?" Obviously I will not confide one of my inner struggles or emotionally charged issues to any of these strangers, but even with the dozens of women I interact with regularly, there are still only a few my comfort zone will allow to fully know me.
There are probably appropriate places and times to let our comfort zone be our guide, but if our comfort zone creates not only an awareness that I am different, but also a sense that I am better, then we are allowing ourselves to be restrained by a lie. "Different" does not mean "better," although sometimes our actions and attitudes declare that. As a brand new junior higher, my son traveled with his youth group down to Mexico and spent the day in an outreach to the poverty stricken families in a small community. Jon’s "job" for the day was to wash the dirt laden feet of the children. I remember the delight he returned home with that he was able to wash feet all day!! He did not see different as better. He had other trips down to Mexico, and he always spoke with a compassionate love and respect for those he went to serve.
Our backgrounds, beliefs, skin color, cultural preferences, priorities, economics, education, handicaps, losses, abilities and lack of abilities, all create differences, but none of those things bring a distinctive that marks one or the other as better than anyone else. And if we are not better, can we cross over the manmade boundaries that separate us, or the boundaries of our own comfort zones, and minister to the one in need? The meeting of practical needs often gives way to the meeting of emotional and spiritual needs, and in whatever way our life touches the life of another for good, we both imitate the Christ we serve, and our service is rendered not only to others, but also to Him.
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