Daily Meditation - Thursday 24th. April 2008 - 5th. Week Easter - GETTING OUT OF THE COMFORT ZONE!

[BarbaraTherese]

My comment:
Courage to abandon the comfort zone does take courage. We are creatures who seek security and finding it, it then becomes our place of comfort and security - our comfort zone. Once we take courage and abandon this zone, we are abandoning a sense of human security and very often confronted with what is a challenge to us. Understanding and feeling at home in our Church can be our comfort zone (and these feelings of security are not bad feelings at all!) and when changes seem to be apparent on the horizon, under discussion, or even actually adopted, suddenly our comfort zone is under threat and we can want to protect it. Comfort and security, understanding etc. etc. are all wondrous gifts of God, but they remain gifts of God and not God Himself and sometimes God asks us to be detached from these gifts and take risks. It is not Unity with God’s Gifts we seek, rather Unity with God.
We are The Mystical Body of Christ on earth moving towards fulfillment in Him, but not there yet…and there can be no growth without change which is simply logic and logical. Logic too is one of God’s gifts.
The Church is not a democracy it is a monarchy under Christ as King. Everytime I pray The Creed at Mass I am confirming my loyalty and obedience to The Church and what She teaches.

Readings
usccb.org/nab/readings/042408.shtml

Meditation
wau.org/meditations/meditations.asp?month=4&day=24&year=2008&x=9&y=7

Acts 15:7-21

***The Jews who had become Christians ***
were feeling stretched.

With growing insight and great joy they had come to recognize Jesus as God’s anointed, the fulfillment of Yahweh’s promises, even the fulfillment of every longing of the chosen people.

But now they were hearing about gentile Christians, people who had turned to Jesus Christ without first becoming Jews. How could that be?

Taught to protect their Jewish identity from contamination by contact with Gentiles who didn’t observe God’s law, these Jewish Christians were willing to admit new people into their community—but only if they followed Jewish practices as well.

The leaders of the Christian community gathered in Jerusalem to consider this challenge. During an acrimonious debate, Peter reminded them how God had stretched his own heart in this area. In a vision, the Holy Spirit commanded Peter to eat ritually unclean food (Acts 10:9-47).

The Spirit told Peter that God himself had sent messengers to him at that very moment (10:20). He further confirmed these Gentiles as his chosen ones by manifestly pouring out his Holy Spirit on them before Peter even finished his homily (10:44-45).

Cornelius and his household did not belong to Peter’s “circle,” but they were very much in God’s heart.*** Extending God’s salvation and his own fellowship to them clearly lay outside Peter’s comfort zone***—but God’s sovereign action overcame Peter’s resistance.

• We all have people with whom we’re comfortable sharing the love of Christ—usually people who resemble us in age, education, social and economic class.
• But many of us have been pleasantly surprised when we have reached out of our comfort zones
• and found new friends in unlikely places!
• It may be a high school student whose language and hairstyle disguise a deep spiritual hunger.
• It may be a Christian from a different denomination than your own, whose life of faith shows you new possibilities.
• It may be a co-worker who is looking for a work environment more open to prayer than to gossip.
• Whatever it is, invite God to extend his kingdom by stretching your heart today.
  ?“Father, open my heart to people I’ve barely noticed before, people called to your kingdom
  and dear to your heart.”