The word ADVENTURE has been imprinted in my vocabulary in a way of making transitions and life feel that much more bold and audacious to the everyday grind that tends to come to mind. So when I came across this “every day is an adventure” stamp on birthday shopping trip with my daughter, it instantly became part of my collection and has widdled its way into pages of my Find the Joy Today notebook.
When I speak of adventures and wish others well on their adventures to come, it more of an invitation to view what is to come with that fierceness and fervor that seem to vibrate off of the very word. This connotation that things will happen but everything is okay and we can laugh and wait for the next segment because it is all part of the adventure and our mind set is right there – fixed on an adventure, not what lies ahead. And if we happen to on that adventure with Jesus, then we can be assured He has us in the palm of his hand and will never leave or forsake us.
Adventures tend to look like days and moments of ordinary. If we look at it under a microscope or a strip of film, it looks like nothing more than dishes and bed time routines and work but in the bigger picture - filled beginning to the end - it looks like a hero coming to save the day and His army leading people into love and freedom by cooking meals on every day dishes and creating safe and loving environments for children who have never known love or routine, tucking them into beds each night. And the job, it is the thing that pushes us into people we may not readily desire to be around day after day, who are different than we are but who God uses to shape us, as we willingly love whoever we come into contact with in that particular moment, knowing it is who we are being sent to.
Adventures look like relationships, which is probably why I love a good memoir, steeped with honesty and depth. The best novels and movies are the ones with the deepest, well developed characters; the ones who make us cry when they leave or mess up or totally blow it and finally get it together. The ones we are rooting for and can relate to because they remind us of ourselves or our little brother or Aunt Mae.
Adventures hardly come with rock climbing gear or kayaks, though that is what everyone may be telling us that we need, along with hopping on a plane to go far from wherever it is that we are located.
But what really is adventurous is daring to live right where we are. With people who really know us. People we are going to see and again. People who can root for us and tell us how it really is and if we have broccoli in our teeth.
Because a new scenery maybe enticing but our same heart, our same memories, our same hurts and fears and insecurities will be in tow wherever our longitude and latitude ends up.
The greatest adventure may just be the one back to ourselves. Back to Jesus. The one back to the people who share our same blood and dimples and at one time perhaps the same last name; back to where we started in the town that was always too small with nothing to do.
Running back to the arms of Jesus, as he heals the parts that have died in the adventurous days of failure and heartbreak and sorrows and let downs. Adventures of this kind take bravery of soul and feel like a knife to the heart, dying to ourselves to freely live.
Here’s to adventures and living with courage.
Praying that wherever your adventure has you currently, that you would find thankfulness there in the moments that are joy filled and those that seem half empty. Praying you would have eyes to see what the Lord is teaching and using and guiding you into. Praying that whatever you find yourself, that you would trust Jesus through it all, healing and reviving and breathing life in your soul for the adventures to come.