"The spiritual life cannot be made suburban. It is always frontier and we who live in it must accept and even rejoice that it remains untamed." It's unknown and uncertain. We hear in the Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey "Home is now behind you. The World is ahead." Bilbo says in the The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, "It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to." But such is the way of adventure. There in the mystery and uncertainty, and that is what our true hearts long for.
"The greatest obstacle to realizing our dreams is the false self's hatred of mystery. That's a problem, you see, because mystery is essential to adventure. More than that, mystery is the heart of the universe and the God who made it." Proverbs 25.2 says, "It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, but the glory of kings is to search out a matter." We'll see in The Way of the Wild Heart, that every one of us is to be a king, its part of the masculine journey. But if we are ever to get there we must embrace adventure. We must seek out the mysteries of God if we are to reclaim our real heart of strength.
And all of this is unique to each individual. "There are no formulas with God. Period. So there are no formulas for the man who follows him. God is a Person, not a doctrine." I think this is one of the biggest things the Church has missed, we have reduced God to a statement of beliefs and we hold more tightly to doctrine than faith. One Sunday I was speaking at a church on some passage out of Philippians. I think it was on the Savior or Lord form Philippians 1.27-2.11. Afterwards a lady came up to me and said, "That was really good. And it's Nazarene." I didn't say anything because it would have caused more headaches than it was worth, but I was thinking, "No it's the Bible. It's God, and it's the Person of Jesus."
We cannot reduce God a five step set of instructions, a "do this and everything will work out." "The problem with modern Christianity's obsession with principles is that it removes any real conversation with God. Find the principle, apply the principle - what do you need God for? So Oswald Chambers warns us, 'Never make a principle out of your experience; let God be as original with other people as he is with you."
I can tell you have God has spoken to me. I can tell you what I have done to connect with Him. I can share with you things He's shown me to be a better man and a more Christlike disciple. But I think it needs to be more a story of God's faithfulness and blessings instead of spiritual check list. Just because God has worked and spoken to me in some way doesn't mean He will do it in the same way with you. He is personal, and He has invited you into a relationship with Him that allows the two of you to be deeply personal. God wants you to share your heart with Him, and He wants to share His heart with you in a way that is unique to you.
"Originality and creativity are essential to personhood and to masculine strength. The adventure begins and our real strength is released when we no longer rely on formulas. God is an immensely creative Person and he wants his sons to live that way too." Last Sunday in Church I was a bit overwhelmed, not in a bad way, almost with excitement about future possibilities. I don't know how exactly to describe how I was feeling but I knew that I needed to get away with God. And so I headed back to The Ledges, a place in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park where I've gone before to try and escape. It isn't exactly wilderness, but it's about close as you can get in North East Ohio.
My plan was to sit and read Proverbs 3, it's been on my heart and mind a lot recently and I wanted to really sit an meditate on it. In the past during times like this God has spoken to me through Scripture. But that wasn't how God wanted to speak today. I had hiked about a mile and a half to get there, and as I sat in the shade on a rock ledge I pulled out my phone and pulled up a couple of worship songs on YouTube. There in the woods I worshiped and connected with God. My heart had peace about the decisions that had to be made; all thanks to time alone with God, hearing Him speak as He chose.
That decision is one that requires faith and trust. It's the sort of thing that if it's God's will I can only fulfill it with Him guiding me every step of the way. That's how adventure works, and this is just that, adventure. "When it comes to living and loving, what's required is a willingness to jump in with both feet and be creative as you go." There is only so much we can plan and prepare for; a lot of it ends up being reaction and a refusal to give up. And that's why adventure is so satisfying. It tests you and shows you who you are as a man.
"This is where we are now - in the midst of battle without the training we really need, and there are few men around to show us how to do it. We are going to have to figure a lot of this out for ourselves... We know how to be nice. But we don't really know how to fight, and we're going to have to learn as we go. That is where our strength will be crystallized, deepened, and revealed. A man is never more a man than when he embraces an adventure beyond his control, or when he walks into a battle he isn’t sure of winning." That type of life demands total reliance upon God, deeper faith in Him than we've ever known. And that is how we are called to live. Who’s ready for an adventure?
"Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another."
To God alone be the Glory!
Strength and Honor
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