Yesterday was a really rough day!  I had to go to the pool twice.  I know your heart breaks for me, but as I was swimming with my son, God taught me a lesson that was pretty cool.

We were hanging out on the steps, and my son likes to have me stand in the middle of the pool and he will swim to me.  Sometimes, I back away from him, strengthening his swimming ability and his lung capacity (seriously his lung capacity is amazing!).  Anyway, we were swimming, and I had backed too far, and even though he was only four or five strokes away from me - IT FELT TOO FAR!  So, he turned around and swam back.  It was almost 3x's farther to accomplish this than take the extra 5 strokes to catch up with me.  But, he knew behind him was safe and that he could swim that far.  But, what he didn't realize is that it was way more effort, way more work, and took a lot more strain on his lungs to accomplish going backwards.

In that instance, God showed me how often I am guilty of this same exact thing.  He calls me to trust Him, have faith in Him, and rely on Him a little more.  I go a little further, but when God wants me really to lean out on the edge of it all, and keep pursuing Him, I turn around and go back to my safety net.  I rely on the known, rather than the unknown.  I trust in myself and my ability to swim back to safety; rather than pursue God and trust that He will grab me before I drown!  

So, my new prayer is that I would not settle for the comfortable, but as I press into the thick of darkness and meet with God, I would not fear or rely on my own ability.  I am praying that God would continue to call me to press out a little further, pursue a little deeper, and that I would not fear!  I am excited to see how God is going to call me to swim to Him and I pray that as He stands out there asking me to go a little further, I would swim with all my strength to get to those areas I have been to afraid to go.

Hopefully that makes sense, 

1 Timothy 1:5