Adventure

Life is an adventure!
Following Christ is an adventure!

How often do you think of it like that? How often do you wake up in the morning, get ready for the day and think, “This is an amazing adventure I’m on today?” We may not often think that way, but we are still on an adventure nonetheless.

So, what is an adventure? The dictionary definition of adventure is “an unusual and exciting, typically hazardous, experience or activity” Adventure involves multiple things all working together. 

• An adventure is a journey. It isn't necessarily a physical journey, though in most stories and movies it is, think Lord of the Rings, but it always involves a journey of some sort. When you go on an adventure you start in one place and you move. You move toward something. You may not know exactly what you are moving toward or you may, but you don't know exactly where it is. In any case, you are definitely moving. No one goes on an adventure and stays stationary.

• One of the reasons for this is that an adventure also involves change, growth, or transformation of some sort. This growth may be a maturity, it may be an acquisition of knowledge or wisdom, it may be a physical change, an acquisition of some power or a shift in character or worldview. The important thing is that in an adventure, the adventurer never stays the same. They grow and transform. This can be both a positive and a negative thing. Sometimes they become stronger, wiser, more loving and compassionate and understanding… sometimes they become broken, jaded, defeated, evil… but an adventure involves transformation because another essential quality of adventure is discovery and excitement as you search for some goal, treasure, or prize.

• This is probably one of the most recognizable qualities of adventure. You are changed as you journey toward some goal or prize. In Lord of the Rings they are searching for Mt. Doom to destroy the One Ring and defeat Sauron and save Middle Earth. The goal may be an object, it may be a treasure. In the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, their adventures always involve a search for some treasure or a goal of breaking some curse. Sometimes the goal or prize may be a person or even a relationship. The point, however, is that there is an objective, and in the pursuit of this objective you go places you've never been, you experience things you've never experienced, you discover new things about the world, about your friends or enemies, about yourself, and all of that search for treasure, pursuit of goals, discovery of new things is exciting. Adventure is, inherently, exciting. There's never been a dull and boring adventure.

• Passion is also an integral part of adventure. Passion is a driving force of life, and an adventure requires a driving force to help push you forward in the journey, to keep you going when you don't know where to go, to keep you growing and searching even when you feel you want to stop and stay where you are, to stay comfortable. You have to have passion because adventure is also hard and dangerous.

• There will always be forces that are opposed to you completing your journey. Those may be external forces. They may be people who are intentionally trying to harm you. They may be friends or family that are scared and want to stop you. They may be internal forces telling you that you can't, but when you journey, when you do something new, when you change, there's always danger involved. You may get hurt. You may lose things. You have to step outside of your comfort zone. 

• Finally, an adventure is epic. It involves you and your journey and transformation and discovery, but an adventure is something bigger than you, something with huge consequences and stakes. Something outside of yourself. Adventure is never small or meaningless or trivial. 

Life is an adventure!
Following Christ is an adventure!

When Jesus said He came so that you may have Life Abundant, He was talking about an adventure, about giving you the opportunity to embark on an adventure.

In Hebrews 11 we have a record of many of the great people of faith and the adventures that the partook in. Then in Hebrews 11:13-16 we read “These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.”

All of these heroes of the faith were on a journey. They considered themselves strangers and exiles on Earth. They were passing through on their journey to Heaven. They weren’t content to sit still and stay in the same place.

In the course of this journey of life, if we choose to follow the journey toward God, we will necessarily grow and be changed. Romans 12:2 says, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

Life is an adventure, and as such we will grow and change and transform as we progress. The question, though, is what will you change into. Will you become more like the world, or more like Christ?

As we journey through this adventure of life, it’s important to always remember that it is epic, that it is so much greater than just us. Both our successes and failures are about far more than us, and, in fact, we can’t even succeed on our own. “But Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” – Matthew 19:26 and in Hebrews 12:1-2 we see, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”

We are surrounded by people, both those living and those who came before us, who are all a part of this journey, of this adventure. We exist within a much wider story than just us, and ultimately it is all about God, who makes all things possible. It’s all about Jesus who also embarked on this adventure of life, and while his treasure, the goal that he was seeking was our salvation, ours is Him.

“Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith — that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.” – Philippians 3:8-11

Above any and everything else, knowing Jesus is the greatest treasure that we could possibly have. Not to say that there is nothing good in this world, nothing valuable or precious or worth pursuing, but when you compare anything else to Jesus, there’s no comparison. He is the greatest, most precious treasure, and as we embark on this adventure of life, our goal should be the same as Paul’s “that I may gain Christ and be found in him”

Life is an adventure!
Following Christ is an adventure!