Why Christians Could Use a Little Adventure
It all started, as I imagine many great adventures do, with a post on Craigslist.
"Ha ha ha, was airing out items on my fire escape, wind blew this gorgeous dress into the tree, I am moving and don't have the energy to get it out, originally priced at four grand. Backless classy dress. Bring some kind of pole to get it out, before it rains …"
I didn't have a pole, but I had a spear, a broomstick, some packing tape, two willing accomplices, very little money, and absolutely no shame.
My husband Joel has been trying to convince me to sell my wedding dress online this past year for money to put toward a trip to Europe - an idea we've always talked about, but will never be able to afford. An idea, despite my yen for travel, on which I am not yet entirely sold. (See the above wedding picture for an idea of what that dress looks like.)
Per his insistence before this most recent adventure, we piled into Joel's car with our friend Kristin, a souvenir spear (collected on a past missions trip), broomstick, and packing tape, and drove to Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood. As we craned our necks for flashes of ivory in the trees above, we spotted it - right in front of the fire escape of the address I had saved in my phone. Joel threw the car in reverse and parked while I danced around the trunk of a tree that had a plastic bag caught in its branches. I had the wrong tree.
On second look, the dress was up there, lodged high in the branches. Joel shimmied up the bare tree trunk effortlessly as I marveled at the man who had married me. Then I taped the spear and broomstick together and lobbed it up to him. While he was jabbing at the dress and I was positioning myself underneath it, arms outstretched, I overheard a man ask Kristin if we were from around here.
The dress was his, he said, and he had bought it fairly cheap at a thrift store.
So much for the $4,000 profit we'd envisioned.
In his best-selling book Love Does, released this year, Bob Goff describes Jesus as a "man of adventure," like his friend Doug, who "was full of adventure and always had some mischief in mind." Doug had a pellet gun and was also friends with Jesus - Goff didn't think that was allowed.
Goff then decided to join Doug and Jesus on that adventure. He got to know God in new and unconventional ways: He pulled his kids out of school for a year to eat ice cream with world leaders; started bringing unheard cases to trial in Uganda because Jesus never told anybody to agree with him, but rather, to "go" (Matthew 28:19 NIV84) and "do" (Luke 22:19 NIV84). Being a lawyer, bringing cases to trial is what he does. Also, he snuck on to the set of a movie in Washington, D.C., because, come on, that's cool - except maybe for the part about how the movie was National Treasure: Book of Secrets.
The Seminary Gender Gap
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Tammy Kennington
An adventure isn't safe, but in Him we are eternally safe and secure. Blessings! Tamy
Rahab
Wait, wait--I don't get it. Paul says, "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world " and you tell us "this is why" you hopped in the car and liberated a dress from somebody's tree in the hopes of earning a trip to Europe? Look, I agree that following Christ is an adventure. I agree with Chesterton that in Christ an inconvenience can safely be perceived as an adventure. We can even take that further (as Scripture does) and consider that even things that go way beyond "inconvenience" into outright suffering can still be experienced by faith as part of our adventure. But a joy ride to chase down a bargain isn't even in the category of "inconvenience." Chesterton was talking about a flood, which is at best a disturbing and disordering event. Paul was talking about a life of being pursued by the authorities, beaten, thrown in prison and martyred. He was faithful clear to the end of that adventure and lived it with joy, but it sure didn't have anything to do with planning his own version of a fun time. An adventure is something that takes you clear out of your comfort zone. If it's an adventure in following Christ it's by definition going to involve sacrificial love. Is that kind of sacrifice an adventure? Absolutely! Using your mission-trip souvenir to pluck a fun prize out of a tree? Not so much. We can kid ourselves all we want about the safe fun of being evangelicals, but the kind of adventure Paul's words are leading us into is of another sort entirely. You can't have it both ways, conform or be transformed. Where's the transforming love in your story? And just as an aside, I sure am curious about the meaning you intend with your wedding picture. Are you funnin' DaVinci, or art in general, or just old art in particular? Surely not that dire night when Jesus Christ said his painful good-byes to his disciples, entrusting them to the keeping of the Holy Spirit for the remainder of their adventures here on earth.
Em Miller
Great words, Tim! They remind me of the description of Aslan in "The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe": "Who said anything about safe? Course he isnt safe. But hes good. Hes the King, I tell you. We worship a good God!
Ann
This blog entry reminds me of Steven Curtis Chapman's song - The Great Adventure! Type the song and name in youtube to hear it! :) Here are some of the lyrics! "Started out this morning in the usual way Chasing thoughts inside my head of all I had to do today Another time around the circle try to make it better than the last I opened up the Bible and I read about me Said I'd been a prisoner and God's grace had set me free And somewhere between the pages it hit me like a lightning bolt I saw a big frontier in front of me and I heard somebody say "let's go"! Saddle up your horses we've got a trail to blaze Through the wild blue yonder of God's amazing grace Let's follow our leader into the glorious unknown This is a life like no other - this is The Great Adventure Come on get ready for the ride of your life Gonna leave long faced religion in a cloud of dust behind And discover all the new horizons just waiting to be explored This is what we were created for We'll travel over, over mountains so high We'll go through valleys below Still through it all we'll find that This is the greatest journey that the human heart will ever see The love of God will take us far beyond our wildest dreams Yeah... oh saddle up your horses... come on get ready to ride" How true! :D
Tim
Emily, you nailed it! I tell people all the time: Life's an adventure. And life with God is the biggest adventure ever. Adventures aren't safe, but I'm not so interested in safe. Solidarity, Sister! Tim
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