Monday, July 2, 2012

The Adventure Before You

I spent some time a while back with a wonderful family that is bored. They are raising beautiful children, working difficult jobs, struggling to make ends meet... and they are bored. They long to make a difference; to do something significant with their lives. They feel the meaninglessness of daily, boring life. They feel the emptiness of just paying bills, making money, eating, cleaning, sleeping, changing diapers and more.

But here is the crazy thing... the thing that makes me want to jump out of my skin and scream! Their lives are awesome! Their lives are jam packed with meaning and adventure! They should be on adrenaline overload from all the action they face every week! So what the heck is going on?

Here is what. They fail to see the meaning in their everyday choices and activities. They fail to see the high stakes and the crucible moments that are before them dozens of times every week. They fail to engage in the adventure that God has created them to live every minute of every day.

What am I talking about? The awesome reality that raising children is an awesome and fearful responsibility with super huge stakes that will affect thousands (maybe millions) of people and their eternities (what is higher staked than that?). The awesome fact that every day they engage in conversations and relationships with people who matter deeply to God, people for whom Christ died, people whose eternities are hanging in the balance. The awesome call to engage in the battle of fighting sin, serving at our jobs with excellence, becoming more holy, joyful, peaceful, satisfied, worshipful, prayerful, loving etc..

You don't need to go oversees to engage in the adventure God has for you. You don't need to become a pastor to have high stakes kingdom impact. You don't need to wait for "the right moment" to engage in the battle. Why? Because THIS moment, THESE people, THESE tasks and responsibilities are the ones in which God means you to live out you adventure.

Here, I believe, is the secret.
Heb. 12:1-2 "And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith."

There is a RACE for you... that means that there is adventure and meaning. We are meant to and called to RUN.

Now look where that race is... SET BEFORE YOU. The race is right in front of you. It is in your daily relationships, job and journey.

Here is the need for this race... ENDURANCE. Some days this is hard.

How should we RUN, the RACE, SET BEFORE US, with ENDURANCE? We do it by KEEPING OUR EYES ON JESUS THE CHAMPION.

And when we do, we will find that He initiates and perfects faith  in us and that life is indeed an awesome adventure filled with eternal meaning right here and right now.

Every minute that you live, you live in the presence of the God of all potential, the God of creation, the God of heaven's armies.  Everywhere you go is a place filled with the presence and potential of that God.

O how I long that every Christian in Moose Jaw would grasp this reality and live in this city as if it were true every day. Not only would we experience much more joy and passion and adventure. Not only would we be far more on fire for God and growing in our walk with Him. We would also have unbelievable multiplied kingdom impact.

So how about you? Did you live the adventure today?