After playing any game for a moderate length of time, I tend to fall into a comfortable pattern with my style of play. Sure, there are more combos to learn and higher level tactics to master… but as long as I can still get by with a simple leg sweep followed by a well-timed uppercut, I default to what is easy, familiar, and safe. Fortunately, a great game doesn’t let me get away with that… as new challenges arrive and the difficulty level ramps up, I am pushed out of my comfort zone and forced to learn new skills to advance. I don’t always appreciate these battles at the time, but a boss fight later in the game will require me to be proficient in abilities I wouldn’t have acquired if the developer didn’t ensure I learned them.

Personal and spiritual growth doesn’t come by cheerfully bouncing from one mountaintop to another… it comes through navigating the complexities of an ever-changing battlefield. The Lord doesn’t push us out of our comfort zones to be unkind… He simply knows what skills we will need to possess later on down the road and develops them in us BEFORE we will need to have them fully mastered. His thoughts and His ways are higher than ours, and He sees the WHOLE picture, including the final frame. Let’s trust His purpose for this storm… He walks on water, but today He’s teaching us to swim.

And Saul said to David, “You are not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him; for you are a youth, and he a man of war from his youth.” But David said to Saul, “Your servant used to keep his father’s sheep, and when a lion or a bear came and took a lamb out of the flock, I went out after it and struck it, and delivered the lamb from its mouth; and when it arose against me, I caught it by its beard, and struck and killed it. The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear, He will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.” 1 Samuel 17:33-35, 37a

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 54:8-9

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