Risk and Adventure

I was raised to never take a risk.  Every time I went outside my Dad's comfort zone I was punished.  He taught me to sacrifice my dreams for the harsh reality of survival.  It's about making it to the finish line.  It doesn't matter how much you hate your life or despise what you have become; as long as you survived, you won.

This leads me to count my days.  I check off each day of the week as I work my way to Friday and my next paycheck.  Every week is the same stressful game of hustling through this life to get to the next event.  And over time I have come to feel the earth spinning faster and faster beneath my feet.  Time does not march, but it races through space like a run-away rocket, hurling me to my death.

I don't experience pleasure.  I eat too fast.  I drink too much.  I consume as much as I can, as quickly as I can.  My haste with the pleasures of this world is because I fear that I will not live long enough to enjoy them.  So in my rage I devour the goodness of this life like a vulture picking at a dead dog; all the while watching over his shoulder for the next car to come racing down the highway.

I thought that moving out to a farm would force me to slow down and finally breath in the beauty that God has created.  But that didn't happen.  I filled my calendar with event after event, searching for something to give my life meaning and purpose.  So instead of finding that my life IS filled with purpose, and that my life DOES matter to this world, I am still racing from day to day.  I wake each morning to scour my list of must do's that will help me survive to the next deary day.

It is a miserable life really.  Don't worry, I am not suicidal.  At least with my beating heart.  But I do want to kill this game of survival.  It is no way to live.  It is not how I am suppose to live.  It is not how you are suppose to live.  I long for a great adventure.

So I am creating a new game.  I am going to find the things that I am passionate about and I am going to learn to savor them.   I am going to learn how to feel the delicate touch of my wife's hand in mine. I am going to sit and engage people and listen to their stories and learn how to celebrate them.  I am going to learn how to slowly sip that $50 shot of whiskey so that everyone of my taste buds screams with delight.  I am going to learn how to live out of my heart and let that be enough.

And that's the kicker there.  To live out of your heart and let that be enough.  To trust that God really will take care of me and my family.  How am I going to let go of all of the little things of this world that I can't control anyway?  I have worked so hard my whole life to be in control.  My job, my finances, my house, my family, my church, my soccer team, my friends, my, my, my.  All of these things that consume my days and wreck my life.  I have no control over them.  But they control me.

So once again I come back to my new game.  I am going to learn to live out of my heart, and let that be enough.  "My grace is sufficient for you," Jesus says to us.  Over and over and over again He speaks to us.  "My grace is sufficient for you."  It's not some cheesy line to help us survive.  It's to let us know that He's got this.  All the little day to day checklist stuff.  He's got this.  And we can just rest in Him and enjoy the goodness that He has created.  He's got this.

Well, wish me luck.  I am sure that I will struggle.  We all do.  But I can find peace in the friction of this life.  Because, I am reminded constantly, that I am not here to just survive.  I am here to live.  To truly live is the greatest adventure.  And the greatest risk is to not let yourself take that journey.

Brian Wm Marshall
07-14-2014