EXODUS: Leave Your Comfort Zone

This final chapter title of LKM's BLOG is inspired by Rev. Russell Isler, Pastor of Montgomery Baptist Church(LKM's current church), and is based on the Bible scriptures of Genesis chapter 12, as well as Matthew 13:57-58 and Mark 6:4-6: The prophet is not without honor, except in his own household and among his own people. John 1:11 says "He came unto His own, but His own received Him not." The title of this BLOG article is a repeat theme of Pastor Isler's sermons, and this scripture is still mostly true in modern Israel: to date, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association has yet to stage a crusade right in Jesus Christ's own back yard.

Does anyone truly have a comfort zone? Or is this just an illusion? Department of Justice statistics say most murders occur between people who know each other, and an initially-good personal relationship turns sour. Also, the number of murders committed where perpetrator and victim are of the same race or national origin considerably outnumber the number of those committed where perpetrator and victim are of different races or nationalities.

It is often popularly said that it is better to go with a devil one knows, than to take any chance with the unknown. But yet, every friend we now have was once a stranger to us, we had to leave a comfort zone in order to discover and make that new friend.

This blogger is a Toastmaster. One day, he gave a speech to his club called "God Bless Archie Bunker", in the which he pointed to Archie Bunker's Great Depression historic background as an apology for his bigotry and lack of cultural finesse. Who among us would be smooth and suave in our personal relations with other peoples unlike ourelves, if we had to quit school early and hustle to find a job--any job--at a time when job finding was nightmarishly difficult? But those of us with better education should know better, except for the fact that we still refuse to leave our illusory and imaginary "comfort zones". This blogger's only real objection to this popular comedy was that it depicted Archie Bunker as a WASP proto-type as being the only genre of person who is bigoted. There is a certain amount of "Archie Bunker" in all of us, and this blogger is not holding his breath to find any Chinese able to speak Arabic, or any Hispanics knowledgeable in the Hindi-Urdu language. "Why should they care", would come the response. After all, knowledge of one's fellow humans of different nationality is "not necessary", the shrinking of the world through improving communication and transportation notwithstanding. "Those people, those people, they, they, they...." as Archie Bunker says.

Then we keep coming back to George Mason University law professor David Bernstein's book, You Can't Say That! Is speech being regulated for cause of guaranteeing us the integrity of our comfort zones here? Is a legal wall being constructed between ourselves and certain inconvenient truths we need to hear? Sometimes, the price of freedom is and must be exposure to ideas that cause us to squirm in great discomfort. Many Bible passages are just like that, as they convict us of our sins. The Bible is metaphorically called "the SWORD of the Lord", and not His butter-knife.

If we leave our comfort zones, we may be surprised to learn that "those people" on the other side of the railroad track are not all that much different from ourselves, at the end of the day.

Finally, the Christian must understand that he or she never had any comfort zones to begin with. As the words to the hymn go: "Christian, do not seek repose, cast your dreams of ease away, you are in the midst of foes, watch and pray..." John 15:18-23. The author of this BLOG has encountered over the years even until now, people within the Christian church, as well as outside of it, who hate him. While he wants to love other people as the Lord loved us, he has known well since adolescent years that he can never trust any other people to love him in return. Jesus Christ spoke true.

-LKM