Does your life NOT seem like an adventure? Then maybe you are missing something. Living for God and with Him brings stuff our way and situations into our lives that ought to be in the category of awesome adventure, if you have that category in your life.
One of my favorite magazines is Discipleship Journal (by Navpress) which I have been reading for over 6 years. Great stuff about ministry and Christianity and life. The most recent has several talking about god calling us to live the adventure (especially the article "Let the Adventure Begin" by David W. Henderson, issue 164). The insight is sweet. Take a look.
"With God present something is always 'about to happen'. Things unusual, daring, exciting - things disturbing and glorious - begin to unfold...God is always up to something: carrying out His will, transforming His people, advancing the kingdom, revealing His glory. And He is always looking for someone to share an adventure." (pg. 40)
That adventure can come in all sorts of packages and in all kinds of locations. I've been white water rafting but never bungee jumping. I've gone 100 miles an hour but never in a race. You get the point. The kind of adventures that God opens are far more exciting than rafting the Gaully River. Yet most of the time we avoid the adventure for the sake of our own comfort. That is the point where we MISS GOD, and that is wrong.
"...An adventure is an inconvenience rightly considered.' When does the adventure slip into an inconvenience or erode into a predicament? For me, it is when I forget about God and slide into functional atheism; when I act as through the universe is a closed system, a box with a lid on it, and all it contains is me and whatever I am facing. In such a universe, if something is going to happen, it is all up to me. Diminishing finances, a self-absorbed spouse, aging parents, the lure of pornography, a recalcitrant child: I am alone in facing them all. No adventure in that. Life is an adventure, on the other hand, when I remember that God is in the equation, that reality consists of me plus the things I face plus the wise and wonderful, powerful and loving Lord of the universe." (pg 40)
We are not alone, and God never intended for us to live life alone, without Him. Are we willing to join God on some adventures? Are we willing to loose our comfort for His cause? Mary, the mother of Jesus, said in Luke 1:38 "let what you said, God, happen to me...I am ready" (my personal translation).
I like this. God intends to disrupt our lives. His way is not to hurt us but to get us on the right road, the road of blessing. It is time to voice our willingness to join God and to understand how God disrupts things....
"God delights to disrupt us so that we will learn to rely...on Him. Him alone. Disruption exposes our idols. Disruption reveals our needs. Disruption stimulates our growth. Disruption helps us not to take gifts for granted. Disruption leads us to consider old things in new ways. Disruption reminds us that there is only one sure thing. No wonder God delights to disrupt us. In disruption, He gives us more of Himself." (pg. 41)
That is good. Lets get in on the adventure. Maybe tell God you are willing like this:
Psalm 73:23-26 (nlt) --- Yet I still belong to you; you hold my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, leading me to a glorious destiny. Whom have I in heaven but you? I desire you more than anything on earth. My health may fail, and my spirit may grow weak, but God remains the strength of my heart; he is mine forever.
God has challenged me to rethink the adventure. I challenge you to see life different....life is an adventure!
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