adventure

Choose Your Own Adventure

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

choose-your-adventure-631x335

I used to love a series of books called Choose Your Own Adventure. In these books, you  went from completely passive reader to active participant in your own story. Well, sort of. You’d come to a decision on page 13. You come to a hallway with a creepy door at the end of it. If you proceed down the hall and enter the creepy room, turn to page 26. If you decide to be a weenie and stay at the end of the hall, turn to page 14.

Whenever I’m at Goodwill or any other used bookstore, I always look for any of the books in this series. So far, no luck.

Life is like that.

So many of us see the days in a week as merely exercises in existence, something to get through until the weekend arrives. Then we look back at our lives and wonder why they seem for the most part to be empty and vacuous.

What if you viewed each day of your life as a brand new adventure? Not in the sense of zoning out of reality and living in a fantasy world, but seeing the challenges and obstacles as opportunities to grow and learn.

Each day you get to choose to be a passive observer or an active participant in your own life. You can mark time until 5 pm, or you can see even the most menial of tasks as holy and sacred as unto the Lord and see everything as an spiritual act of worship (see Romans 12:1-2). That’s the choice you get each morning.

So what will you do with this great and amazing gift called life? If life is the grand play and you may contribute a verse (as Walt Whitman and Robin Williams put it), what will your verse be?

“I’m going to live my life inspired
Look for the holy in the common place
Open the windows and feel all that’s honest and real until I’m truly amazed
I’m going to feel all my emotions
I’m going to look you in the eyes
I’m going to listen and hear until it’s finally clear and it changes our lives

There are so many ways to hide
There are so many ways not to feel
There are so many ways to deny what is real

And I just showed up for my own life
And I’m standing here taking it in and it sure looks bright” (Sara Groves).

The Grand Adventure of Life

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to” (J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings).

“An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered” (G.K. Chesterton).

I made the comment last night that I was going on an adventure last night (or something like that– I’ve slept since then so my recollect is suspect at best). A friend of mine asked me today what that adventure was.

This is what I should have said in response:

Life itself is a grand adventure. Waking up every morning and getting another 24 hours is adventurous in and of itself.

Living in absolute dependence on God is an adventure of the best kind. You never know when and where He will show up, only that He absolutely will show up if you only have eyes of faith and a heart full of gratitude big enough to see Him.

Faith is trusting without needing to know all the answers and without requiring that every step and every second be road-mapped and planned out ahead of time. Faith is the ultimate adventure.

Some days, I think I’d like to take off like Bilbo in The Hobbit or Frodo and his friends in The Lord of the Rings. Some days, I feel like I really could use a good quest.

Then I’m reminded that maybe the biggest and best quest of all is simple to go out into a dark world and be salt and light. To go into a godless world and be the only Jesus that some will ever meet and the only Bible that some will ever read. To preach the gospel at all times and use words when necessary.

That in my opinion is the grandest of adventures.

 

 

Bye Bye Blockbuster

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

image

I found out today that Blockbuster will close it’s remaining stores by January. I know I haven’t rented or bought anything from one of their stores in a REALLY long time, but it’s still sad. It truly is the end of an era.

You might be old enough to remember going to Blockbusters on a Friday or Saturday night. For me, it was usually not having a clue about what to rent. Or the movie that I wanted was a) all rented out b) not in yet or c) not available for rental anymore. Plan B involved taking a chance on a lesser known movie or hitting the 99 cent middle section for an older flick.

Sometimes, I picked a classic and found a new favorite film. Other times, I ended up with a dud that was unwatchable. But at least it was an adventure. And it got me out of the house on those really slow weekends.

I’m old enough to remember the “Please be kind– rewind” stickers on the old videocassettes. To this day, I have no idea what happened to that Home Alone video I rented back in the early 90’s. True story.

You could say that Netflix killed Blockbuster. Or you could choose Redbox as the culprit. The truth is that times change and things come and go– like video rental stores, VHS, and pay phones.

I’m glad the only things that doesn’t change are God and His love for me. Not even my own weaknesses and stupid choices will void God’s love for me. The Apostle Paul says in his letter to the Romans says nothing in all the world can separate me from God’s love or cause that love to lessen or diminish in any way. Nothing.

Not even unpaid late fees on a Blockbuster rental.