How you ever felt like you are not living the life you were supposed to?

When you were young did you have dreams that are still not fulfilled?

Or worse, did you long forget your dreams and settle for something less than spectacular?

On a scale of 1 to 10 how is your marriage in the areas of honesty, closeness, intimacy, sex, friendship and teamwork?

Are you and your wife united and accomplishing life goals together?

Do you have spiritual gifts that you wish to share but somehow something keeps you from moving forward?

This week I want to talk about Fear, Comfort Zones, and Stagnation and how staying too comfortable in our marriage, spiritual life, finances or career will ultimately lead to failure.

A few years ago I was invited to give a graduation commencement speech, being still in my 20’s and not considering myself a success I was not sure what to speak on? I was being paid for this speech so I had to come up with something good, I decided to talk about fear, failures, success and comfort zones.

My speech talked about that I did not consider my life a success but an adventure. By being adventurous, taking calculated risks and getting out of my comfort zone, I managed to accomplish a lot at a very young age. I further stated that some people let fear, doubt and failures push their lives into stagnation and mediocrity, this further leads to unhappiness, divorce, financial problems and a number of other self destructive habits. I challenged the new graduates to live a life of excitement, a life of adventure, a life of calculated risks and with this will of course come failures.

Failure is part of life and everyone will fail now and again but the truly great people learn from failures and get back up and keep trying. Those that fail a few times and give up will fall into a life of mediocrity. A self made multi-millionaire of one of the fastest growing small furniture chains in the US once told me “Lance, the only reason I am where I am today is because of my failures. But with each failure came a lesson and growth.”

In my early 20’s, a mentor of mine sat down one day and taught me a lesson on comfort zones. ” Lance, the only way to grow, achieve and succeed is to constantly put yourself out of your comfort zone. The problem with this is that getting out of your comfort zone requires facing fear, self doubt and relying on faith.”

“Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.”

Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?”

Matthew 14:28-31 (NIV)

If you want to be a great husband, father, or a great anything, you will need to learn how to face fear, leave your comfort zone and handle failure. But even more important, you will have to learn to have faith and trust in the Lord when facing fear and failure.

In Part II I will discuss why not dealing with fear, comfort zones and failure can ultimately lead to marital, financial, career and spiritual failure and then in Part III we will wrap it up with God’s own spiritual lesson on facing our fears and following his true path designed for us.

-Esse Quam Videri-