Adventure or Not?

As summer freedoms and vacations come to a close and kids all over the country are starting back to school, I can’t help but to remember that very special time many years ago, when I found myself beginning my senior year in high school and dating a wonderful, spunky and funny young lady.  Oh!  And did I mentioned that she was lightly covered in freckles and “cute as a bug in a rug?”*

In the course of what would become a lifelong relationship, I quickly came to the revelation that she was different than just about anyone else I knew.  Simply said, being with her was an ADVENTURE… not just because of the joy that she carried about her, but due to the simpatico we generated together.  From day one, we just loved and enjoyed each other’s company.  We had a level of serendipity that extended into everything we did… be it when we were alone, raising our kids or working with the youth and children that we ministered to at the local churches we served in.

And at the center of our lives were the expectations that we continually generated along with the excitement that came from our daily ADVENTURES in our Christian faith!  The Apostle Paul alluded to such ADVENTURES in faith in the first letter that he wrote to the church in Corinth when he stated that,

“God, who got you started in this spiritual ADVENTURE, shares with us the life of his Son and our Master Jesus. He will never give up on you. Never forget that”. (I Cor 1:9 – MSG)

Paul’s faith was exciting to him… God was exciting to him!  Everything he did was founded on the Word of God and his personal expectations of God doing exactly what He promised to do in His Word.  Paul “KNEW” Jesus and the power that His Word had over the mundane things that were prevalent and widely accepted as the norm in life… like sickness, poverty, confusion, depression, fear and the lack of hope that still prevails in our modern times today.

When writing to the Roman church Paul excitedly declared that,

“I have no interest in giving you a chatty account of my ADVENTURES, only the wondrously powerful and transformingly present words and deeds of Christ in me that triggered a believing response among the outsiders by the power of miraculous and amazing signs, and by the power of God's Spirit, I have finished spreading the Good News about Christ from Jerusalem to Illyricum.” (Romans 15:18-19 – MSG/God’s Word©) 

Like I said, Paul came to expect miraculous signs and wonders when he presented the Word of God to those he spoke with.  The word “signs” is defined in the original Greek as “an unusual occurrence transcending the common course of nature.”**  Though his personal experiences with the people he interacted with on a daily basis, from countries all throughout the known world at that time, Paul expected and most likely depended on the Word of God to change and or transcend the common course of nature in people’s lives… and then he bragged about it in all the letters he wrote to those who supported him!

I would kind of expect that each of you reading this post today would… like me… want to say the same exact thing about your life and the ways in which you interact with the people you see each and every day!  Wouldn’t you?

So, therefore… would you consider your life to be an ADVENTURE in faith?

Hummm…. Just think about it… What would you say to that?

Have an exciting week as you live your daily existence as an ADVENTURE in your faith… while you witness the miraculous signs and wonders that occur through the powerful Word of God that you share with others!

*You know… that really is a dumb saying as most bugs are anything but cute!  But with a little research, I discovered that this odd simile is just a merging of 'as cute as a bug's ear' and 'as snug as a bug in a rug'.  I guess that makes better sense… what do you think? (https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/as-cute-as-a-bugs-ear.)

** Thayer’s Greek Definitions