Tag Archives: Reckless abandon

From routine to the edge of adventure

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Do you ever have the feeling like you are stuck in a routine, doing the same thing over and over, never really getting anywhere, but instead just running in circles, and just wasting your life away?

 

That was the plight of Bill Murray’s character in the movie, Groundhog Day. Every day he would wake up on Groundhog Day and everything would be the same as yesterday. The same pointless routines, the same meaningless dialog, and the same boring and unfulfilled existence.

 

Maybe you feel the same way. You look back at the past year and ask, “Where did time go?” You look back over a lifetime of toil and ask, “What happened to my goals and dreams?”   You’re stuck in a rut that seems like a grave with the ends dug out. You ask, “Is there a way out?”

 

Maybe today is the day to drive a stake in the ground or draw a line firmly in the wet concrete that proclaims, “I’m not going to waste my life. I am going to live a life of adventure with purpose and passion!”

 

What does it mean for a Christian to ditch the wasted routine and start living on the edge of adventure?

 

Jesus said “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” (Luke 9:23). He said it is like one who lost a treasure and gave up everything in order to find it.

 

It might look like Paul who considered everything he once sought to win as becoming like rubbish, worthless compared to knowing Jesus. Not just knowing more about Jesus, but knowing Him in such an intimate way that compels you to follow Him in everything you do. As the martyred Jim Elliot said,

“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”

 

Elliot’s fellow missionary, martyred by his side, summed it this way:

“I have one desire now – to live a life of reckless abandon for the Lord, putting all my energy into it.”

 

Francis Schaefer said it is the life being visibly marked by the expression of God’s love for others. Like a mentor of mine when I was a youth said, “To have even your unconscious thoughts and desires bear the mark of Jesus.”

 

Maybe the question isn’t, “Am I ready to get out of a rut?” Maybe the question is, “Do I really want to bear the full mark of Jesus and live the ‘abundant life’ adventure of following Him?” The call is yours. Answer it today.

 

 

The end of one adventure is the beginning of the next

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“Please, Aslan,” said Lucy. “Before we go, will you tell us when we can come back to Narnia again? Please. And oh, do, do, do make it soon.”
“Dearest,” said Aslan very gently, “you and your brother will never come back to Narnia.”
“Oh, Aslan!!” said Edmund and Lucy both together in despairing voices.
“You are too old, children,” said Aslan, “and you must begin to come close to your own world now.”
From The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, CS Lewis

It was a sad moment for Lucy and Edmond, realizing that their great adventure had come to an end. But the great Aslan reminds them of an important lesson we would do well to also learn:

The end of one adventure is often the beginning of another.

For me, there was the end of a good career and good health and the beginning of the battle against cancer. While not the adventure I had sought, it has not been without certain revelations I may have missed elsewhere. Then there was the end of the cancer (for now at least) almost a year ago and the beginning of a new life with new stem cells and all the blessings and trials that come with that. There is for each of us the end of the adventure of life as we know it and the greatest adventure of life after death!

For now, there is the end of this past year and the anticipation of the new one upon us. It is a time to consider wise words:
“There is a time for everything…a time to mourn, a time to stop mourning…a time to fight and a time to stop fighting.” (Ecclesiastes) Always, it is time to accept and fully embrace the life transitions given to us. It is a time, as Paul puts it, to forget what is past and to press on to what is ahead. (Philippians 3)

Imagine a new year being decidedly content and fully satisfied with God’s plan being unveiled in your presence, day by day. Imagine living by faith with reckless abandon the adventure to which he calls you. Don’t shy from it despite your pain, your doubts, your regrets, or your fears. Embrace this new year as a gift to be fully explored and enjoyed.

“Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” Isaiah 43:18-19