Ever Afterনমুনা

When Comfort Zones Become Danger Zones Battles have a way of naturally causing us to look to the Lord for help. When life is falling apart, we often look to God to help us piece it all back together. Thankfully, not every day is a battle (insert praise hands here). However, sometimes it’s actually our comfort zones that become danger zones. Our wins can actually work against us if we feel confident in ourselves rather than our God. The Lord is gracious to give us seasons of rest, but if we don’t handle those seasons well, they can quickly turn into seasons of complacency and compromise. Being in a great relationship is awesome until you start to lower your boundaries because your comfort level is higher. Sailing on smooth waters is peaceful, but a sailor wouldn’t stop reading their GPS just because they weren’t in a storm. Your choice to keep doing the right thing the right way matters! God’s people experienced a devastating loss during the battle at Ai immediately after their big win at Jericho. The battle of Jericho is pretty famous, but people don’t love to preach about the battle at Ai because it was pretty brutal. After their victory at Jericho, God’s people were instructed to destroy everything in the city, but a dude named Achan decided to steal some of the goods that were meant to be destroyed. It probably didn’t seem like that big of a deal. They were destroying everything in the city — what did it really matter if Achan kept a few things for himself? Maybe he thought he had fought (marched?) hard and he deserved it. Well, it mattered to God. Not because God is mean and didn’t want His people to have nice things. He was trying to protect them from idols because He knew how powerful a tiny idol could be. God was trying to guard the hearts of His people so He could continue blessing them. To make matters worse, we constantly read about Joshua going to God before a battle to get his strategy directly from the Lord, but in the battle at Ai the Bible never tells us that Joshua looked to God before preparing to fight. Perhaps Joshua was overly-confident after his win at Jericho. Ai was a smaller city, so Joshua decided not to send all his men into battle, and as a result, not only did they lose the battle, but 36 of their men lost their lives, and the Bible tells us that God’s anger burned against the Israelites. Yikes. Just like we can learn from Joshua’s wins, we can learn from his losses too. Joshua immediately ran to the Lord after their devastating loss at Ai. He fell before the Lord and asked God for help, and God was faithful to meet Joshua in the midst of his setback. Achan’s sin had to be dealt with, but after the sin was addressed, the Israelites went on to fight the Ai army again, and this time they won. Our God is a God of second chances, so even when we blow it, He’s still faithful to meet us in the aftermath and redirect us to victory. When you find yourself in a comfortable place, try to avoid the pitfalls that tripped up God’s people. Take sin seriously, ask God to show you what idols may be hiding in your heart, and commit to seeking Him whether you feel like you’re on the mountain or in the valley.