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).