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Comfort can rule our lives. It can even break us away from the things we love to do, because sometimes it is difficult to find the get up and go, sometimes it makes us feel uneasy or vulnerable even to chase after our dreams and passions. It’s much easier to go through the week, go to work, make small talk with colleagues, have dinner, go back to work, send emails, draw rotas, make phone calls, go home, watch TV, sleep, and then start the cycle again. It’s easy to do what needs doing, when that’s always what gets done. Yet it’s so hard to be stretched, to think outside the diary, to find time to do what we really want to do. Even in our downtime we find ourselves just watching TV, or going on Facebook, because that’s easy.

Comfort is so easy to achieve, and always looks so desirable. But the saying rings true, the grass is always greener on the other side. Comfort quickly becomes boring, stale, over rated.

But why is it so hard to leave the comfort zone? Why is it so hard to think outside the box? I love writing, I especially love writing songs. Yet when I sit down with a pen it is sometimes so hard to write. The same, boring ideas float round my head. The same cliché sentences that already send people straight to sleep, the same boring rhymes. Why is it so hard to find a way outside the box?

When we spend too much time being comfortable, it gets harder to break away. Waking up in the morning it can be so hard to get up, and it seems the longer we lie in bed, the more difficult it becomes to get up, well this is how it works for me anyway! Yet when we get into a pattern of getting up, it becomes easier, yes we will have off days. But when you get yourself used to it, it becomes natural.

I envy people who have the perseverance to master their skill so much that it becomes 2^nd nature. I long to have the same determination, but I spend too much time getting half way and being satisfied to quickly.

I long to stretch myself so much that I find it hard to sit comfortably, I strongly believe God longs for us to become uncomfortable, He did not send us to earth just to rest, and have an easy time. That’s what heaven is about! But we are here to grow, try, and try again. Sometimes at great cost. When this is not happening, something is wrong.

I find there is nothing worse than looking back on a day off and thinking, well I slept till 12, I watched TV, played on the Xbox, had a shower and got dressed at 4pm, and watched TV all night because it was too late to do anything. What a waste. So my challenge is simple… What can we do today, that will make tomorrow, a yesterday that we will want to live again?

So i recognize that lately i have been rubbish at keeping this blog up to date. And the truth is, i have been swallowed up by twitter. This revolutionary site that allows you to quickly write a couple of sentences of what you are up to/been up to or anything has overtaken Facebook on my to-do list each day. And here’s the shocking news, on my iPhone i have even chosen to place Tweetie (The catalyst for my Twitter ‘Tweets’) on one of the permanent 4 spots, along with ‘Phone’ ‘Email’ and ‘SMS’. Which means it replaces ‘Safari’ because i realized i use it more!! Shocking.

But what this means, which brings me to my initial point of this blog. Is that it is now quite an effort for me to write more than 140 characters! Because i can’t do it in 10 seconds, it requires more thought! And i just spend all my time on Twitter! I am not saying it has taken over my life, because i can still live with out it! But it is a wonderful addition, and i have found it a great way to regularly keep up with friends, without stumbling into the more often than not awkward ‘Hello, how are you’ conversations! So if you don’t have Twitter i suggest you get it! You will find me at twitter.com/gazsimmonds i think.

I half wrote a blog last week which was going to tell you all about an amazing conference i went to where Loius Giglio was the main speaker. But i found it difficult to concentrate so left it to go and update my Twitter status! What i am trying to say ladies and gentlemen, is Twitter is where its at. Some would say it is the ‘Bees knees’ or the ‘Cats Pyjamas’, i just think it’s pretty cool. Our Church is even on it, along with many other Churches!

But having said all this, i am definitely not going to abandon this blog, because i love it. And soon i will get inspiration to write something good on here. Maybe we could even give it a little make over, like changing rooms! I feel i look a bit weird on those photo’s now as they are getting older by the day.

Anyway. God Bless

By the way, i bought a new football today, it’s amazing. I got that excitement i haven’t experienced since my child hood, where you buy a new football. We went to play with it for the first time. Only on grass though (Obviously) and then after i gently held it and flicked off all the dirt and made sure there were no major scratches. It is sitting proudly in my room as we speak.