Cultivating a Sense of Adventure: Saying Yes to Your Life

We stood ankle deep in icy cold water, recently melted snow making it’s way down the mountain, and we stared at the natural waterfall.  The vastness of creation is amazing.

As we watched, a few brave souls stepped to the edge, willing themselves out into the 40 foot drop off.  It was fun to watch them from below, their approaches as varied as they were.  Some were deliberate and calculated, other flagrant and flamboyant.  Some stood and stewed and stared, ultimately turning back, apparently not as enticed when they had a front row seat.

My kids watched wide-eyed.  Every brave can become a lesson, even if it’s not your brave.

Those cliff jumpers reminded me that our sense of adventure runs as deep and wide as the river we were standing in.  The jumpers themselves were obviously out for adventure, but so were the onlookers.  It just looked a little different for them.

As each potential jumper approached the edge, the 100 or so people spread out along the river below stopped what they were doing and watched.  Some grabbed cell phones in an attempt to capture someone else’s brave.  And they waited patiently.

One jumper languished in the tension.  She stepped forward and she stepped back, forward and back again.  She tossed her flip flops over the edge in hopeful determination.  And while none of us were near enough to see her face we knew exactly what was going on in her mind.  She was scared.  We knew the feeling so well ourselves we could spot it from a mile away, feel it even.  And when she finally jumped, cheers and whistles rang out from the banks of that river.  Because every one likes to see brave win, one more fear defeated.

Taking that all in over the weekend, got me thinking about our sense of adventure.  Our readiness to try new and hard and different.  Sometimes it’s jumping off waterfalls or zip lining, adventures that get our pulse thumping.  And sometimes it’s saying yes to our own lives.  The adventures of everyday.

The distraction, the sickness, the interruptions, the job fails and the not going as planned, they are adventures just the same.  Home with 4 kids, my day is full of them, but your life with co-workers, family members or friends who don’t quite view the world quite like you do, it’s really much the same.  Conflict, tension, turn of events, adventures.

A sense of adventure is simply a willingness to dive into what is in front of us.  We don’t always have to seek it out, sometimes it finds us.  But we always have the choice.

David saw the giant and he dove in.  Ruth saw the need and she dove in.  I don’t think their adventures were what either of them expected or planned or maybe even wanted for their lives.

I’m sure Ruth planned to settle down with Mahlon, have some kids and call Moab her forever home.  Who chooses to be widowed, to move to a foreign country with your mother-in-law and seek out another husband?

I’ve been weighed down lately by some hard stories.  Stories of loss, stories of life not turning out like we hoped, or expected or planned.  Stories of life not being fair.

I’m sure David and Ruth and thousands of others before us felt the same way.  But history was changed by those who accepted the adventure right in front of them.  Those who chose not to languish in what was or could have been, those who chose not to walk away, give up or cower because it was just too hard, but those who accepted what they were dealt, fought for something beautiful and became key contributors in a far greater adventure than they had ever imagined.

Waterfall jumping is a fun feat.  But jumping into the adventure of your life, stepping in to what God is doing right in front of you, even when it feels bitter and painful and hard, that is the stuff of legacy.  That is what I want to be known for.  That is brave.

I don’t know what tomorrow holds for any of us, but may we all choose to accept the adventure, bravely.