Comfort Zone: Stretching Beyond Your LimitsSampel

Harvard psychologists recently discovered something they call the “end of history illusion.” The idea centers on a tendency all of us have to believe that we have already become the person we are supposed to be and that we are done changing (i.e., the end of your personal history). 

They researched thousands of people from every age range and found that, whether in their twenties or sixties, individuals believed they would change less in the years ahead than they had in the years prior. Yet in their next decade of life, they were surprised to see that they changed just as much—if not more—in recent years than in the past. 

I have seen this play out in my own life as well. Each new season makes me feel like I have learned almost all I can learn and that my personal growth will begin to slow. However, I am always surprised by the amount of change that continues to happen in my life. The assumption that we are done changing prevents us from pursuing positive growth. We can drift to a form of complacency that comes from thinking we are done being refined.  

The Apostle Paul figured this out thousands of years before Harvard. In Philippians 3:13, he describes his strategy for approaching the present day in this way, “Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead . . .” Paul considered himself not yet there. Not yet perfect. Not yet fully what Christ had redeemed him for. And this “not yet” attitude is what drove him to pursue growth in his life. He says in verse 12, “I press on to take hold of that for which Christ took hold of me.” Imagine a world where we lived with a “not yet” attitude. What would it look like for you to live with the conviction that you had “not yet” arrived? 

Adam Johnson
Director of Group Life