Currently I’m reading the book “Wild at Heart” by John
Eldredge. In the book Eldredge writes about how we “men” are wild at heart, at
our core being, and how we’re on this great journey. One of the things he
writes about is how we desire an adventure to live. A story much greater than
ourselves. A journey that entails us to explore, to fight, and to find out who
we truly are.
I love adventure. I
don’t necessarily mean jumping out of planes, swimming with sharks, getting
tattoos, or living a life of reckless abandon. I’m talking about the journey: the
people I meet, the places I go, and the things I experience. It’s
all of the exciting times as well as the tough, desperate times. There is a
point where we tend to dwell on the fun, exciting, smooth sailing, no cares
kind of stuff. But how can we ever stand victorious over something we didn’t
have to endure to accomplish? There is no sense of success in hard work. And in
order to accomplish something, you have to do it. You can’t just sit there and
expect anything to happen. You have to put yourself out there and experience
it. That’s what drew me to the Race. Come on, traveling around the world to
multiple countries, seeing many sites and wonders, experiencing new cultures;
now that’s adventure!
Like I mentioned in my previous blog “Feet Fitted With
Readiness!”, I’ve been feeling like my adventure has stopped. As much as I want
to head to the border to get another stamp in my passport, I can’t. I can’t
just hop on a bus for 10 hours and go camping in the northern bush country. It’s not about me anymore. It’s about my team. They
have to come first. I have to put them before myself. Are they holding
me back? No, we’re called here to this place and it’s not my call to make. I
have to submit. Even if it means sitting in a house all day waiting for our
contact to call with a ministry opportunity.
I feel all alone. I feel
cheated. I feel let down. “But didn’t you sign up for this program?
Haven’t you had enough opportunity for travel and adventures already? There
will be more opportunities in the future!”, have been thrown my way. Why do I
get defensive when I’m up against these things? Did God trick me into coming on
this “Race”?
I’m still trying to abandon all of my expectations, my
entitlements, and my wants. I’m in a new season. So maybe this is part of my
journey. Sure it may not be the “adventurous” part, but it’s still the journey,
right? But the greatest adventure of all is
seeking, chasing, and intimately meeting the Lord. It’s not just an adventure but rather THE ADVENTURE! We all long for it. We all long to be
wrapped up in a story much greater than ourselves. We want to see more than
what we know. How do you think this all came to be? God created us for
relationship; so when our earthly relationships fail, we cry out. God created
the earth; so when we want to see new things, we travel away. We just miss the
point so often that God is longing for us to call upon Him. He wants us to call
upon His name. He doesn’t want us to wait till we realize that all other places
we go fail, even though we so often do.
I’ve gone to all of those places before. I’ve gone to where
I was stretched. The funny thing is that they so often were the Lord. Yet a lot
of times it was my longing for something more. I’ve found my adventure I have
been wanting deep down inside. It’s not the craziness of what this world has to
offer. It’s my longing to be a part of the divine story that the Lord is
writing. Of course this doesn’t mean that I’ll never experience the wonders of
this earth, but it does mean that I will always be exploring, always fighting
the good fight, and always finding out who I truly am. All this through the One
who created me and everything that I look to for my adventure! What could
be better than experiencing life alongside the One who designed it?
