Today the pastor of the church I regularly attend preached about adventures. He exhorted us to shake off our lethargy and ask God to send us on adventures. Not necessarily that such adventures would take us around the globe to exotic locales, but simply that adventures would happen, that we would allow God to inconvenience us.
The idea of adventures has always appealed to me. It's why I love action/adventure movies and books; why I love science fiction and fantasy tales like Tolkien's masterpiece The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. As John Eldredge has written, men are wired to long for adventures, to pit themselves against doughty odds and see what they're made of, to fling caution to the wind and chase after their dreams, regardless of cost or safety. Eldredge claims that this is a divine mandate, a holy desire implanted into the hearts of men by God. (And women too, but they crave different kinds of adventures.)
And Lloyd was saying the same thing: God wants to throw adventures at us, not so we can prove ourselves strong and capable, but so that He can prove Himself strong and capable for us, through us, and to us on our behalf. Discard the hum-drum, he cried, passion spilling over into his sermon as is common with him. Dare God to sweep you away, and hang on for the ride!
Well, this sounds quite good to me. I loved Eldredge's books, as much for the references to movies and books as for the spiritual applications and insights he shared. Because I love those same books and movies, those stories. My heart soars and thrills when Luke Skywalker vaults to the sail barge in Return of the Jedi, outnumbered and outgunned, but steely-eyed, brandishing his lightsaber; when Samwise Gamgee stands over the prone Frodo and beats back a giant spider with a glowing sword and a vial of Light; when William Wallace glowers at the English and snarls his defiance; even when Mr. Keeting whispers "Carpe Diem" to a group of boys in a still hallway, and awe creeps over their faces.
This evening I watched, for the first time, The Man from Snowy River, a tale of Australian cowpokes, rugged mountain men, and wild horses stampeding across craggy peaks. Apart from the '80's music and a few moments of ham/corn/cheese, the movie was well-done and compelling. A young lad on the cusp of manhood loses his father and has to prove himself to be capable, a man. Through various adventures he wins the heart of a girl, defies her tyrannical father, and conquers the wilderness, embodied in the guise of the horses running wild and corrupting those horses owned by man. He triumphantly canters into the sunset, secure in his ability to handle anything life can throw at him. A heart-warming story with some truly breathtaking scenery and vistas that made my spirit ache with wonder.
Eldredge alludes to this story in his writing, as another proof of man's love of adventure, his drive to prove himself, his desire to win the heart of the woman and provide for her. All these are true, and my mind was brought back to the sermon. Often have I wondered what adventures lie in store for me. I imagined being a missionary in jungle surroundings, braving death to bring the Gospel to savage natives. I saw myself an author of epic tales that stir the heart and dazzle the mind, like my literary heroes Tolkien and C. S. Lewis.
The reality is, however, that my life in no way correlates to such daring-do and adventure. I scrape by with meager wages from a part-time job; I can't even ride a horse (at least, I've never done so). And as for the Woman, heh, well, that's as desolate a scene as the Salt flats of Utah.
It struck me that all the heroes of stories such as these had a dream, a goal, a drive to accomplish something, and the adventures happened to them while they were pursuing that goal. Bilbo was on a mission to conquer the dragon and reestablish the dwarves to their rightful rule under the Lonely Mountain, while his nephew Frodo had a greater task, to destroy the Ring of Power before evil overtook Middle Earth. Wallace fought for Scottish freedom, Neo raged against the makers of the Matrix, and Keeting sought to free his students from a dry and lifeless pursuit of academic knowledge in favor of experiencing full-blooded life. None of them went after adventures for their own sake; rather, they had something higher to aim at.
And this is what occurred to me as I mused on Lloyd's sermon: should I pray for an adventure for its own sake? To break the monotony of life, of the Christianity of duty, church attendance, and daily quiet time, simply because it's boring? That doesn't seem to be the pattern, does it? And here's what I'm missing: a mission, a goal, a quest. My dad talks of having that passion upon entering Wycliffe Bible Translators. He had a goal that all his efforts were directed at achieving, and he said that he was never happier and more fulfilled in this area than at that time.
One might object, "Isn't God the object of your pursuit, to know God more deeply, experience His life in your life and share that with others?" My rebuttal would be, does this constitute a specific goal? Every believer should feel the same way, but some are called to be scientists, some missionaries, some pastors, some mechanics, some professors, and some managers of Chik-Fil-A. I understand and applaud the spiritual quest, but I'm talking about a quest for the here-and-now, everyday life. Because that's how the Lord can prove Himself strong on my behalf, providing for me as I walk in this life, breaking down barriers and opening doors for me. C. S. Lewis walked with God and wrote amazing stories and theological texts, but he was a professor in life. His passion was for English language and literature, and God used that for His glory.
I love literature as well and plan to pursue a higher degree in it, but is that my goal, the overriding motivation for the adventure? Do I need one, or is my desire for one fanciful?
Recent events seem to pile up misfortune and tribulation upon me, which can be adventuresome in a way but not if the person involved isn't striving for something and finding hardships come as a result. I'm not striving for a goal when my car dies and continues to perform poorly, when I can't find a job that pays enough to fulfill my needs. Giant spiders acted as impediments to both Frodo and Bilbo, like Longshanks to Wallace and the dean of Keeting's school, not to mention the father of one of the students. But those challenges arose while they were on the path toward the goal. My difficulties sprout up even when I'm going in circles or can't get out of the starting gate.
Does this mean the longing for adventure is any less keen? Certainly not. If anything, the frustration only increases the desire for some mission I can choose to accept, some goal to shoot for, some purpose in this life I can set my sights on, and the adventures that follow pursuing that purpose. It has been said that you should find what you love and figure out how to make money doing that. But what if you don't "love" anything? You like a great many things, but nothing that consumes you, that drives you. If you don’t have that, then what will you set your sights on? This is the unenviable position in which I find myself.
