His Heart Scribe Inspirations Devotional Magazine January 2014 January Issue 2014 | Page 26

(Continued from page 20—Apostle Lee Ann Marino)

s God
has
dealt
with
me, I
came to realize the comfort
zone just isn’t working anymore. For a long time, I’ve
held to my own status
quo. I tried to venture out,
out of God’s timing, into
other dimensions, and I
never had very good success
in so doing. I came to accept
where I needed to be (even if
I didn’t understand why),
and I’ve maintained the positions I’ve been in. Now,
God doesn’t desire for me to
remain in that zone. God
wants to take me to another
level, and that level is, in
some ways, unknown for
me.
This experience makes

me think about Abram’s
command in Genesis 12:1-3:
“The Lord said to Abram,
‘Leave your land, your relatives, and your father’s
home. Go to the land that I
will show you. I will make
you a great nation, I will
bless you. I will make your
name great, and you will be
a blessing. I will bless those
who bless you, and whoever curses you, I will curse.
Through you every family
on
earth
will
be
blessed.’” (GWT) We love to
romanticize the experiences
of Abram because we know
the end result – we know
the intense blessings he received and we receive as a
result – but we don’t think
about all the things that
must have gone through his
mind when God asked him

to leave his entire comfort
zone and go somewhere
new. God didn’t tell him
where he was going, only
that his time there was up,
and he needed to move on
to the new territory. We focus on the obedience, which
is relevant, powerful, and
yes, desirable, but we never
consider the process that
went into that obedience.

don’t question for a second that Abram had his doubts, thought twice about
it, and wondered why in order to be blessed, he had to leave everything comfortable and familiar to find it. The reason is simple: in our comfort zones,
we really don’t need to be blessed, because we are in control. We know what
is coming, we know where we are going, and we know what to expect. Whether we like the circumstances we are in or not, we have a sense of control that
limits us and our ability to experience and receive from God in new and different
ways. The blessing of God doesn’t lie in our constant flocking to what we always know –
it lies in the unknown, in those situations and circumstances that require us to rely upon
Him, and only Him, and find Him in everything we see, do, and need. Blessing lies as we
give up control – and surrender to God.
© 2013 Lee Ann B. Marino. All rights reserved.

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