A few weekends ago my parents were in town. One of the benefits of living in a beautiful place is that I regularly get to see my family because they regularly want to see Colorado.
The whole weekend was a blast but I found myself saying a phrase repeatedly...
“Come on it will be an adventure.”
We had to go to a wedding rehearsal on Saturday and it required driving to a part of Denver that I had never been to before. Everything was new, the people, the roads, the buildings, the restaurants, the landscape. I didn't know where we were, or what to expect. On the drive up I said the phrase.
On our way back we decided to stop in downtown Denver to hang out and get some food. We had no plan and no clue what we were gonna do and I said the phrase again.
On Sunday morning we decided to take my Dad to a local restaurant that my wife and I really enjoy. I knew where it was, I knew what to expect, I was excited. When we got there we found out the wait would be an hour and a half to two hours...bummed.
I had heard about another restaurant that was amazing but I had never been there before, didn't know where it was or what to expect. We loaded up and headed off and I said the phrase.
I love knowing where I am going and how to get there and what to do when I get there, you know being prepared.
I didn't realize how I had begun to confuse preparedness with a fear of the unknown.
The wedding venue was beautiful and the drive was gorgeous.
Downtown Denver was so much fun, I found myself asking my wife why we didn't wander around downtown more often.
The breakfast place we ended up at was Denver Biscuit Company and it was amazing.
It reminds me of something I read in one of my favorite books. When asked about what laid beyond the sound barrier, this mythical place an airplane would enter when it approaches supersonic speed at or around a speed of 343 meters per second (1,125 ft/s), General Chuck Yeager, the first pilot to break the sound barrier as a test pilot, said this:
“It is ugly and it is unknown. It is the ugknown.”
So many times in our lives we are faced with the opportunity to explore new possibilities and we have a choice, always go where we have already been and do what has already been done or embark on an adventure into the ugknown.
I think that following Jesus is all about adventure. When living in step with Jesus and the Holy Spirit there is no normal and no routine way that life is going to be lived. Adventures with Jesus require relationship and communication and they birth new levels of intimacy and dependency.
I like to be prepared for life, even situations that might show up, but if I understand preparedness correctly I should invite adventure, after all you don't need to be prepared for what you already know.
My prayer is that we would live prepared by spending time cultivating an intimate relationship with Jesus so that when he invites us into adventure we are already ready.
Jesus regularly taught that following him was full of adventures and no certainty...
“19 Then a teacher of the law came to him and said, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.” 20 Jesus replied, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”
Be prepared and venture into the ugknown, for one step into the ugknown dramatically changes it from ugly and unknown to known, and all it takes is one step.