Hi Ho Silver and Bring on the Adventure!

As a single person (actually, this probably isn’t limited to just single people, but that’s beside the point), I keep wishing that the “next step” would happen in my life. I keep thinking that whenever I finally get that next job, or that next relationship, or that next child, that next house, that next etc., then the adventure in my life can begin. I keep thinking that where I am at right now is just a place for waiting for that next-step-thank-you-God-it’s-finally-here adventure to get started. Then the following thought hit me this week: gosh what if I’m thirty before any of those things happen? What if I’m forty? Eighty? What if I wait years and years for adventure to start in my life and in the process, miss all the adventures that could be happening to me now?

We all do it, to a point. We all have watched a movie and wished that all of that adventure could happen to us. The movie I just watched was a Sam Elliott and Tom Selleck western (gosh I love those movies!), full of rushing horses, cleverly timed and placed explosions of dynamite, racing trains, kidnappings, long lost love, a strong willed woman and stubborn but ruggedly handsome men, surprise attacks on enemy camps, canyon hideouts, a desperate battle between good and evil – oh I’m sorry, am I getting carried away? I wish! I wish I was the one being swept off my feet and onto the back of wild, racing horse as I narrowly escape a cattle stampede – oops sorry! I did it again!

Then I look at my own life and of course, none of those adventures are happening to me. (sigh) Where’s my adventure? When does my adventure get to start???

Well, here’s a neat little passage I came across recently –

“Life is now a battle and a journey. This is the truest explanation for what is going on, the only way to rightly understand our experience. Life is not a game of striving and indulgence. It is not a long march of duty and obligation. Life is a desperate quest through dangerous country to a destination that is, beyond all our wildest hopes, indescribably good.”
-John Eldredge, The Journey of Desire

Wait a second – did that guy just tell me that my life is a battle and a journey? A desperate quest through dangerous country? Wild? Really? He must have me confused with someone else! That sounds far too adventurous to be describing me.

Or is it? This week I’m reading in 2 Corinthians and in 2 Corinthians 11, Paul is writing about his life and it starts making me look at my own completely differently. His life was much more physically dangerous and hard and uncomfortable than mine, don’t get me wrong, but bear with me – Paul says he has worked hard, to within an inch of his life, I interpret. Can you relate to that? I can. He says he’s been flogged and near death again and again – have you gone through the same hurtful trial and broken heart beyond hope of repair over and over? I have. He’s been beaten, stoned, left for dead – ever felt abandoned, alone, or attacked? I have. He’s been shipwrecked – ever been lost in life, stranded so far away from where you want to be that you don’t know how to get back? I have. He’s spent a night in the open sea – ever had to wonder or worry about how you were not only going to get through the next day, but wonder how you were even going to get to the next day? I have. He’s been in danger from rivers and bandits – ever felt carried away by a force you can’t stop? He’s been in danger from his countrymen – ever lost trust in a friend? – and strangers. He’s been in danger in the country and in the city – it didn’t make a bit of difference if he lived where there was supposedly a slower pace or a faster one, the result was the same. He’s “labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep” – oh good heavens can I relate to that! He’s known hunger and thirst – my college days come to mind, but this doesn’t have to be a literal hunger and thirst, as you well know. We hunger, even starve for things we can’t get a grocery store. He’s been cold – ever lived in a drafty apartment? Ever had to skip paying a gas bill? And he says that on top of all of that, “I face daily pressure of my concern for the churches.” On top of managing to stay alive day to day, we have additional worries, don’t we? Single parents worry about their kids, some of us worry about something at work, some of us worry about a neighbor or another family member. Some of us worry about how we’re going to meet somebody new. Paul says that once he even escaped harm by being lowered from a window in a basket. God’s provided me with a few proverbial windows to climb out of myself.

Geeze, the more I look at Paul’s life, the more I see quite a bit of adventure reflected in my own. Now the idea of my life being battle makes a little more sense. No, I’m not carrying a sword around and riding about on horseback, but I fight the battle to strengthen the minds and guide the souls of teenagers every day (don’t tell me I don’t do battle!!) I don’t necessarily hide out in canyons from a posse with a vengeance, but I certainly cross gaping canyons in my heart. Surprise attacks? I’ve been subject to a few of those and I’ve probably led quite a few myself. Dangerous country? I will press on! War between good and evil? I will fight for the good! “I will keep on doing what I am doing!” as Paul says. “For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world.” We demolish doubts. We take captive thoughts and make them obedient to Christ. God gives me his grace and shows his power through us. We stand ready. Good grief, with a life full of so much adventure, I’ve quite forgotten that I was waiting on someone to bring the adventure to me!