Day 5 -- Into New realms

day 5, the creation of birds and fish, really stretched my mind to come up with an analogy. but when I did I knew it was something terribly important to me, and central to my faith journey. Birds and fish are creatures that inhabit the sky and the water -- places that are not my natural element. But walking by faith compels me out of my comfort zone into those places where the breathing is hard and painful. We tend to think of that sort of "stepping out by faith" as something that happens to superhero missionary types, i contend that it happens in the dailiness of life, whenever I choose to respond with love, rather than self-protection, whenever I choose obedience when disobedience would be so much easier, i am walking that strange, hard path ..

Not in the comfort zone,
Not in the easy place:
Pushed to the edge of fear
By Your compelling grace.

Out of the meadows green,
Where I would lushly stay:
By that hard stony path
You call the narrow way.

Up through the mountains sharp,
Into the bitter cold.
Tears in the frozen night
Whisper of fears untold.

Still, still, You urge me on
Past precipice and bluff,
Over the edge of maps,
While my flesh screams, “Enough!”

By the high eagle-road,
Where breath is thin and spare,
Because I thirst for You,
I will still crawl and dare.

Faith has carved out a path
Straight to the heart of You
And, since this is Your will,
No other way will do.