"Opposed to that familiar place that you could always control, predict, and master - God put you somewhere uncomfortable - a place that you could not control or master - a place that would not enable you to stay the same - a place that would press shape and mold you - drawing out all your hidden strengths - a place of uncomfortable transformation and a permanent realization of who God meant for you to be!"
RESIDUAL SELF IMAGING - Cognitive Dissonance
"Cognitive Dissonance" a term used in psychology that describes the deception of how people may perceive themselves versus how the actually are.
"We MUST Go through Gods process & we must walk out the deliverance of our soul - to eventually become the projection of our perceived best self."
I first heard the Phrase "Residual Self Imaging" on the 1999 blockbuster hit "The Matrix". Where one of the main characters Morpheus is describing how the computer projects Neo's digital image of himself... He States "Its a mental Projection of your digital self."
My wife once said to me that, "We tend to have an idea of who we want to be verses who we actually are." In other words we can often perceive our selves through the lens of our own personal highlights. Yet the unfortunate truth is that others close to us naturally see us only striving to be that representative, and still struggling with our flaws. Sometimes it takes someone else to see us and expose the truth about us before we are even aware of it. Therefore, as optimistic Christians we must find a balance between our projected faith self, speaking those things that be not as though they were and the way that God sees us, versus the way that others around us actually see us. But we must be careful not to loose touch with our faith self and the confidence in the way that God sees us, yet also not lose touch about reality. We do no want to be stuck living in a false reality with false positives and never striving towards our better person.
DON'T LOOK BACK!
When uncomfortable hits us our first reaction tends to be looking back & reminiscing in past Joys and missing old places of familiarity where there were perceived comforts. Grace was prescribed to that particular situation alone. Trying to relive that joy is definitely not helpful to this Growth process God has you on. God once told me that where grace minimizes over time is where Grace is replaced with responsibility.
One time an older gentleman I was talking to stated that he missed his "Ole College days"... That they were the days that were the most fun & the most Joyful in his life. Yet he said it in a way as if there would never be any greater days as those... as if that level of Joy had died in his life. When actually every greater joy in our lives should always lie ahead of us, and that there are new joys and different types of joys for every new season in our life! True Joy comes from God. He provides it and he refills it as well. Its as easily accessible to us as the Word of God is everyday, We simply must choose to access it. (Romans 15:13)
A HARD PLACE
For every Christian in every uncomfortable situation there is a Rock & a Hard place. The Rock being God himself, and the hard place being someone or something that no longer enables you to stay the same. (Hebrews 12:6) Yes, it can be a cruel place sometimes... look at Joseph in bible bible. He found himself constantly in uncomfortable places. Or look at Saul of Tarsus in prison, we can recall that if Saul had not been locked up with enough time to contemplate his letters and compose them to the churches we would not have half of our New Testament today! Which brings me to my concluding point. Uncomfortable Places BRINGS OUT our Greatest strengths, DEVELOPS unprecedented character, UNCOVERS our hidden Gifts, and REVEALS our primary purpose in God. If we stay the process in our uncomfortable places there is a great reward and new levels of life waiting for us on the other side of the press. (Hebrews 10:35) After all this process was only preparation for what lies ahead! Yielding to the press and cooperating with God's Process puts us in the position for him to use us the greatest. (1 Peter 5:7-9) It exposes all of our works and reveals every hidden Gift of God that lies within. Every ounce of true potential we posses can only be seen on the other side of "UNCOMFORTABLE".