Outside Your Comfort Zone, part 3

If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always gotten. Now, you're in your comfort zone.  Why not just keep things as they are?  Let sleeping dogs lie.  Why rock the boat?  Why ask for more? Why do anything differently?

I've been part of a 30 minute teaching and prayer conference call for the past four years known as Rise @ 5.  For the past two years, I've had the wonderful opportunity to teach on this call Monday through Thursday, week after week.  My comfort zone includes getting up between 4:30 - 4:40 every morning, bathroom break, brush my teeth, pray, turn on computer to my bible software wherein are my teaching notes, call the conference line at 4:58, say good morning.  Same routine, day after day, week after week, consistently for more than two years.  Out of nowhere came a Tuesday morning when I dialed the conference line # and got a busy signal.  Hung up, dialed again, got a busy signal, repeated this for several times.  God, what's going on?  I must do something different.  But what? I'm the teacher, got to get on the call. Finally got linked into the call through another person at 5:08.  Next day, same routine, and the same busy signal happened again.  Ooops, I need to go back to the same person who linked me into the call the day before.  She had difficulty, but we finally got on the call at 5:10.  Later than the day before, not good.  Third day comes and I remember that if I do what I've always done, I'll get what I've always gotten.  Followed the same routine except I made the call at 4:51, seven minutes earlier than usual.  Got on and was amazed at the number of callers who were likewise calling in earlier.  It is my understanding that before 5 o'clock, a dozen women were already on the call. 

So what's my take-away from the three day experience?  There is a time when we need to step outside our comfort zone, a time when we have to take a different approach, a time when we have to make a change.  Sometimes, we have to Proverbs 3:5-6 God.  "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight."