Comfortable?

So you may have noticed I gave up on posting the "reasons to be happy" from my day by day calendar.  It just became a bit monotonous, slightly boring, and frankly, some of them were really stupid.  "Writing on index cards."  --is that really something that brings people pleasure??  Maybe in a sequence of events can index cards be a source of happiness...

a student makes makes flash cards to study for a big exam

student gets an A on exam

student celebrates by going to the beach

...maybe index cards can make you happy..but not as a single entity.  I'm just sayin'.

Anyway, my thought of the day today is about our bubbles.  Our cliques.  Our routines.  Our comfort zones.  How many times do we get caught in the same routines with everything we do and don't branch out?  An example of this became very real to me last night.

I have various "groups" of friends that I hop around to.  I love it.  I am comfortable with each group and do different things with each of them.  I recently stopped to think about how I would love to meet new people and expand my friend base.  Oh, but  I meet new people all the time... through my "groups." Bear with me.  This sounds confusing but it will clear up in a minute.  Let me give an example.

I go to the Young Professionals group at the Summit every other Thursday night.  A few of my friends go, and we sit together.  We generally sit in the same seats, at the same table every week.  We come in, find each other, worship, talk to each other, and leave together to go grab dinner.  Don't get me wrong, we do talk to other people... but lately I have felt that maybe it doesn't happen as often as it should.  Aren't we called to fellowship?

Yesterday I told Ainsley that I was not going to sit with her at YP's.  I said that I wanted to sit at a table with people I didn't know.  It wasn't personal, but I wanted to try it out.  How funny is it that I met 2 new people last night and one of them said he had seen me before. 

--I'd never seen him.--

He even knew that I sat up front ...and that confirmed my suspicions.  I haven't stepped out of my bubble in weeks.  I really enjoyed talking to new people last night and think that we all should do it more often.  Afterwards, yes... I left with my core group of friends and we went to dinner as usual.  I'm not saying we should have a million acquaintances and no real friends.  Even Jesus had his few that he confided in and spent most of his time with.... but we aren't fulfilling our purpose if we aren't loving others, and how can we love others if we love our comfort zones too much?

I feel like this post has jumped all over the place, but I'm confident that I have gotten my point across.  Tonight I'm going to hang out with one of my groups of friends.  They open up their place every other Friday night for food and fellowship with the purpose of having a place for people to hang out.  Anyone is invited.  You should come... and meet new people.  http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=114897285252807&index=1