Stepping out into New Territory

I remember that when I was a kid living in Kenya, I think I was about 10 or 11 years old,  there was a school day- trip to the Great Rift Valley. If you’ve ever heard of the Great Rift Valley then you’ll know that it is the most amazing sight I have ever seen. When I sit back and reminisce on it all, I feel like going back there just to see that landscape but if you’ve read my story about living in Kenya you’ll understand my reluctance to even go back there. I often think about what if God were to ask me today “Go back to Kenya”….would I do it? I mean this would mean facing that which I feared, but I’ve now began to resolve within myself, that even though I was terrified as a kid because of the experiences I had without full knowledge of God at the time, my perspective of going there has changed in that now I know God and I wish I knew Him better a little earlier when I was going through some things but I am grateful that God is in my life now. THANK YOU JESUS!

Anyway, back to the school trip story… so we went there and it was really a trip to go to Mount Longonot. Mt. Longonot is not really a mountain per say , it’s more of a dormant stratovolcano, in otherwords a crater created during the time Mt. Kenya Erupted many years ago during the formation of the Rift Valley so it is a tourist haven for those who love hiking. I love hiking and all but when we got there and I looked at the steep incline to go up, I freaked out! Mt. Longonot is known for it’s steep rigdes that look like numerous veins of embankments.

Natrually, I wanted to go back and call it a day, but there’s no turning back now since the bus has left and plus I was with some teachers and friends as well so I wasn’t alone either as this was a whole new experience for me. I even thought of feining sickness like an asthma attack…but I didn’t want to call back a sickness I had long since recovered through swimming, so in the end I had to brave it out into the mountain that laid before me. It took us 3 and a half hours to get up there and let me tell you that my Nike shoes were not built for this rocky and steep terrain. It was an amazing climb but there was a freaky moment when one of the students slipped off one of the narrow ridges that you had to walk single file because you could either fall to your left or right of the embankment but thank GOD a teacher managed to catch her on time. I tell you that my heart literally stopped in pure shock upon seeing that and boy did I pray like crazy after that. I thought to myself “I must be crazy to have convinced my Grandma to go up this mountain” I wanna LIVE! lol.  It was incredibly windy too (which was not helping) and the sun was beaming happily on our heads making us sweat like crazy. I mean…I’m pretty sure I lost weight going up there, if not from the walk itself, definitely from the stress, lol.

I thought about this whole trip and thought to myself, I can’t afford to die here today because if I do, my grandma is surely going to kill herself and meet me in heaven and spank me silly for not living lol. It took a lot to convince her to allow my sister and I to go on this day trip in which we would return at the end of the day because she was quite fearful of our safety so it wouldn’t pan out well if I slipped and fell somewhere and died just like that lol. It’s funny that I thought this as a child because my Grandma was strict so I was afraid that I’d meet her in Heaven and she’d give me hell for dying so easily and probably lecture me on why she didn’t want us to go up there in the first place with many yadda yadda yadas and a whatever *me rolling my eyes*…I tell you this is a Kids mind, well my mind, lol. I’m sure if she knew I was rolling my eyes like that, she’d get angry with me so “Sorry GRANDMA! in advance”. I must say, my grandma truly gave me the fear of God in her uh hmmm.

When we got to the top, and I mean the summit *praise the Lord*, we were sitting at the very edge of the crater so any foolish move would mean toppling into it and I took a brave peek inside just to see what was down there but it was really dark… I mean Pitch black…I know in photos you can see trees from an airplane view but it’s diffferent when you walk all the way up there and look into the deep. It was drafty and it was dark….pitch black…no, more like blacker than black. It was a scary thing to see looking in. I remember my foolish guy friends trying to nudge me forward to take a closer look and some were foolishly walking right at the sharp edge as the dare devils that they were, but I had no crazy ambition to do what they were doing so I shake my head at these *guys* tsk tsk tsk. However, it was an amazing thing to see all the same. When you shout into it, you expect an echo but it doesn’t really echo down there since there seems to be so much wind at the top that muffles the sound.

We ate our lunch as we took a break from the treacherous trek upwards and looked at the view of the Rift Valley that lay before us down there. It was indeed a wonderous sight. I was in awe of God’s creation of this land. I remember feeling amazed and I thought to myself that this must be how God felt when he finished creating the whole world…He must have sat at a high place like this and thought…”Wow, I did a great Job! It looks so Awesome!” *Pats Himself on the Back*. Truly the World is our Lord’s canvass and it is beautiful.

To end the story, it took us two hours to get down because going down is easier than going up and it was just as treachorous. My shoes looked like road-kill and my Grandma was not pleased at all, whoa, you should have seen her angry expression…but I’m used to that lol…..but despite all that, she was happy that we ventured out into the deep and explored this amazing land. We (My sister and I) did something that was new and it was a great adventure. We stared at fear right in the face and took the courage to go out there and get messy, get experience, expanded our world view and enjoyed the journey. It was a terrific adventure. I will never forget it.

It was new territory for me and I learned a lot from this experience. One lesson that I grabbed from all this was that You have no idea what you are capable of doing until you step out and do it. When I reflect on this truth I think this goes without saying about everything we do. Sometimes we are too scared to do the things we have never truly ventured out to do before because of fear, and we over-analyze ourselves for lack of skills or experience, but You have no idea what your true capabilities are until you step out into a situation that is foreign to your comfort zone.

I feel like God has been talking to me about this area for a while and there are areas in which I find myself feeling shaken and afraid to do because I have comfort zones that need breaking. What are your comfort zones? Don’t kid yourself and think you have none because if you aren’t operating at your full potential then you have comfort zone issues that you need to deal with in all sincerity. I know I do…in fact I feel like lately, God has been forcing me to face myself so much in this area so each year I purpose to do something different to expand my horizons. Try and do something that you’ve never done before and see what happens. You might learn something new about yourself that you never knew before, but you won’t know what it is if you are sitting on your derriere. You can’t enlarge your territory sitting down, you have to get up and GO!

If you go year to year and do nothing different….you are living in a case called INSANITY. The Insanity Zone keeps your potential on lock-down. In order to break from that, you have to do something DIFFERENT. Shock your Comfort Zone levels, Shock your Insanity Zone levels and get into the POTENTIAL Zone. To unlock your potential, you have to step out of the Comfort and Insanity Zone.

Question is: “Are you willing?”

No one can do this for you except yourself so like me, who had never climbed a crater let alone a mountain before, had to face this reality… Believe me, I wanted to turn around and tail run…but when you have no where else to Go but UP, then GO UP! This is what I believe God wants people to do…Don’t look back, don’t look Down, LOOK UP! You are the HEAD and not the TAIL.

If you want to enlarge your “territory”, it’s not enough to pray the  Prayer of Jabez. You have to be willing to step into that territory just like CALEB and JOSHUA! Read about them again in my post called The Latter Rain will be Greater . Enlarging your Territory means stepping into it. It’s not something that you should expect to land in your lap without your participation. You have to perceive it first when God shows it to you and then He will expect you to walk right into it and claim it. God Points the direction and you follow where His hand leads, do you get that? Are you ready for God to Point His Finger in the Direction where He wants YOU to GO? When I think of this question, I always freak out first and then I say “Yes” in a small, sheepish voice…because when you don’t have the full picture, it is at these times that God expects us to WALK BY FAITH AND NOT BY SIGHT(2 Corinthians 5:7).  He always tests us with the WORD.

The Promised Land

So my encouragement today is:

Walk into your territory, do something that you’ve never done before to enlarge your territory because you haven’t tapped into your hidden potential yet. Expand your horizons and seek no limitations because God says “NO LIMITS!”. For with man it is impossible but with GOD all things are Possible Matthew 19:26. You have someone that is Greater that is living within you (the Holy Spirit, the HOPE OF GLORY1 John 4:4) that is waiting to perform, but we cap the Holy Spirit in us by our Faithlessness, our Disobedience and our Fear. Fear is not of GOD, so embrace Courage and step into your Territory so that God can take you to the Land of Promise that He is going to Show you. 

 Stay blessed everyone !

Scriptures to Meditate

2 Timothy 1:7
For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

Deuteronomy 28:13
And the LORD will make you the head and not the tail; you shall be above only, and not be beneath, if you heed the commandments of the LORD your God, which I command you today, and are careful to observe them.

Numbers 13:30
Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses, and said, “Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it.”

Numbers 14:24
But My servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit in him and has followed Me fully, I will bring into the land where he went, and his descendants shall inherit it.

Matthew 19:26
But Jesus looked at them and said to them, “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

Genesis 12:1
[ Promises to Abram ] Now the LORD had said to Abram: “Get out of your country, From your family And from your father’s house, To a land that I will show you.

Deuteronomy 31:6
Be strong and of good courage, do not fear nor be afraid of them; for the LORD your God, He is the One who goes with you. He will not leave you nor forsake you.”

Deuteronomy 31:7
Then Moses called Joshua and said to him in the sight of all Israel, “Be strong and of good courage, for you must go with this people to the land which the LORD has sworn to their fathers to give them, and you shall cause them to inherit it.

Joshua 1:6 
Be strong and of good courage, for to this people you shall divide as an inheritance the land which I swore to their fathers to give them.

Psalm 27:14
Wait on the LORD; Be of good courage, And He shall strengthen your heart; Wait, I say, on the LORD!

Psalm 31:24
Be of good courage, And He shall strengthen your heart, All you who hope in the LORD.

1 John 4:4
You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.

Psalm 37:23
The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD, And He delights in his way.

Proverbs 3:5-6

⁵ Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
And lean not on your own understanding;
⁶ In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He shall direct^[a] your paths.