adventure | Russellings of the Spirit

Posts Tagged ‘adventure

May

Holy Unsettledness!

Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: adventure, call, change, comfort, familiarity, God, Jesus Christ, routine, settledness, YES

I love to travel.

In fact, Joan and I just returned from a great, nine-day trip to the state of New Mexico. In fact, if you’d like some tips on things to see and do in Taos, or White Sands National Park (Sand. The attraction there is SAND), or Cloudcroft, or at Carlsbad Caverns, drop me a line. (revruss1220@gmail.com).

There are delights and surprises around every corner in New Mexico. We discovered that it is a very EMPTY place, too. Small wonder our government chose it as the perfect place to blow up atomic bombs, test missiles, and hide aliens.

Enchanting, indeed.

Along with the adventure of travel, though, comes no small degree of unsettledness. What I mean is, you spend the whole time driving on strange roads, sleeping in strange beds, seeing strange sights, eating strange food, and meeting all manner of strange people.

Yes… you are correct to remind me that breaking out of the daily, predictable pattern of life is the whole point of travel. But it is also no surprise that I usually return home from a trip carrying a peculiar mixture of sadness and relief in my heart.

“WHEW!” I said out loud as we finally pulled into our driveway. “Home again AT LAST! Back to predictability. Back to my OWN bed and back to our ‘normal’ lives. Back to settledness.”

Later that day… after the car had been unpacked and the first load of laundry started… I began thinking. As I listened to the gentle “ka-thump ka-thump, ka-thump” of the clothes dryer, I wondered, “As good as it is to be back to the predictable places and patterns of HOME, is it possible to fall too much in love with this kind of ‘settledness’? Could I – or could anyone for that matter – ever make an idol out of ROUTINE and PREDICTABILITY?”

I think we all know the answer to that question, don’t we?

As much as we gasp in horror when our apple carts are unceremoniously upset, we each know the truth. And the truth is this: sometimes apple carts need to be upset. Sometimes routines need to be disrupted. Sometimes sacred cows need to be turned into delicious hamburgers.

We see plenty of stories of that very thing happening in the Bible. God plucked a very settled, successful man named Abram from the middle of the comfortable life he was living there in Haran and told him to go to “a land which I will show you.” (Genesis 12:1, NRSV).

Later, God set a bush on fire in the middle of the Sinai wilderness, interrupting the quiet afternoon reverie of a shy, stuttering young shepherd, and told him to, “… bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.” (Exodus 3:10, NRSV).

Over and over and over again in the Bible, we see God snatching the TV remote out of people’s hands, tossing them off the couch, and yelling, “Get up! I’ve got a TASK for you… a task that will UPEND the comfortable, SETTLED life you are living right now!”

You might even say that this kind of thing happens SO often we might conclude that it happens ON PURPOSE! God seems to keep pulling people – ordinary people like you and me – OUT of our routines to accomplish God’s purposes.

It MAY BE that God is calling you RIGHT NOW to step out of your comfort zone and do something extraordinary to accomplish those purposes.

Then again, it may not be. I think back to the 13^th century monk, Brother Lawrence, who spent his life cooking in the monastery kitchen as his act of devotion. He found ways to infuse holiness into every pot he washed, every potato he peeled, and every brick of every floor he scrubbed.

Whether settled or not. Whether routine or not. Whether predictable or not. I think the point is to be READY to respond completely and unequivocally to God’s call.

Happy travels!

Abundant blessings;

Dec

To Plunge or Not to Plunge…

By revruss1220 8 Comments

Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: adventure, camping, courage, cowardice, Dogs, outdoors, risks, RV

When an inanimate object really, REALLY becomes a member of your family, you give it a name.

We named him Travis.

“Him,” in this case is a 2017 Winnebago Travato, Class B touring coach. Or RV, if you prefer.

For at least two years – starting right after I finally, officially retired – Joan and I began talking about how much we were looking forward to hitting the open road with our two dogs, Rosie and Patrick.

We longed to wander aimlessly around this big, beautiful country of ours, seeing all the sights we have not yet seen.

And re-seeing some we have.

“How cool will it be…” we said, “… to drive around with no particular schedule or destination and no assignment except to feast our eyes on America’s natural wonders for days on end.”

Exhaustive research, conversation, and prayer finally led us to conclude that THIS (the Travato, that is) was the right way to go. And wouldn’t you know it, shortly thereafter, a couple who lived very close to us listed one for sale.

So we went and met Travis. And it was love at first sight.

Fast forward to today, four months later. Here we sit with egg on our faces and feeling a little silly and a LOT sheepish. That’s because we have decided to put the FOR SALE sign on Travis.

Why? You might ask. As it turns out, we are not campers.

Neither – apparently – are Rosie and Patrick.

We certainly gave it the good, ol’ college try. We started slowly, with trips close to home and short in duration… gradually expanding our radius and trip length. We had a two-night trip right here in town, four nights up to Lander, Wyoming and back, and then just shy of a week to Kansas City and back.

The dogs let us know right away that they didn’t like the sleeping arrangements. And so, THEIR nocturnal restlessness led to OURS.

Both Joan and I also both grossly underestimated the amount of work and preparation involved in getting ready to hit the road… and the clean-up work on the other end when you get back home.

We found that we loved the part about being able to drive around and explore cool, new places. But we really didn’t much love just sitting outside on our camp chairs staring into the fire for hours after dinner clean-up.

At one point, Joan looked at me and said, “I think the people who do this a lot are really PASSIONATE about it. And the truth is, we just aren’t.”

So now we are both feeling red-faced and asking ourselves questions like: Why couldn’t we have been smarter about this? Why couldn’t we have each KNOWN ourselves a little better and foreseen our deep-seated aversion to the camping experience? How did we let ourselves get so carried away by this romantic notion of free-form road-tripping? Why didn’t we do a better job of anticipating the dogs’ discomfort with Travis?

All good questions. But in the end, unanswerable.

Sometimes in life you just have to STEP OUT. [Sort of like Peter stepping out of the boat.]

Sometimes the only place the answers can be found is right smack-dab in the MIDDLE of the experience. In that sense it is a bit like parenting…

We live. We make mistakes. We learn. And we live some more.

I just hope this episode (which we will one day affectionately call, “The Travis Chapter”) doesn’t discourage us from ever again “taking a plunge” into the unknown. I hope it does help us to ask better questions and search our hearts a little more closely before doing so.

When I read the words of 2 Timothy 1:7 (NRSV), “… for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline,” I hear it reminding me that we were created to take risks. Not to risk foolishly, of course, but to use God’s spirit of love and self-discipline to help us step boldly into the Great Unknown.

Hmmmm. Do you suppose that even applies to buying RVs?

Abundant blessings;

Sep

The Right Question…

By revruss1220 4 Comments

Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: adventure, circus, Colorado, Democrat, explore, Jesus Christ, new, political, Republican, Telluride

Since we now live in a new state, Joan and I recently decided to do a little exploring.

We drove to the southwestern part of Colorado and set ourselves up in the lovely little town of Ridgway. We highly recommend it, in case you are ever looking for a picturesque, unspoiled, little mountain getaway town.

On our third day there we asked our GPS, “How far is it to Telluride?” We had heard great things about the town of Telluride and wanted to drive over and do a little exploring.

Our GPS quite accurately told us it was 15 miles from Ridgway to Telluride…

… as the crow flies, that is.

We discovered that if you happen to be a human instead of a crow, limited to traveling in a car across paved roads – as we were – there is a completely different answer to the question, “How far is Telluride?”

That answer is thirty-nine miles.

That trivial little exercise caused me to wonder; could we be in the midst of one of those times when some of us are not asking the right question?

With a major political election looming on the immediate horizon, the question seems obvious; Trump or Biden? Democrat or Republican? Liberal or conservative?

Pick your side. Make your speech. Cast your ballot.

But what if those are not really the right questions at all?

What if the right (better) questions are somehow deeper… more fundamental and essential? And what if these better questions concern the kind of people you and I will BE from here on out instead of which political horse we choose to hitch our wagon(s) to?

Make no mistake… I am watching the current political hullabaloo like a hawk. At times it is more entertaining than an NFL game. At other times, it is more frightening than a Stephen King novel. And I definitely do have a favorite in this race.

But the more I watch this show and the more blood that is spilled, the more discouraged I get about the real benefits of ANY potential outcome.

We can change the political circumstances in which we live. But until we fundamentally change the people we are – the way we think, the way we interact with one another, and the way we live our lives – neither of these would-be political messiahs is really going to make much difference at all.

I propose that a better question for us each to ask ourselves today might be this one: what kind of edges will my life have from here on out?

What I mean by that is…

Will the edges of my life be made up of a hard, impenetrable shell? Will I pour all of my energy into fortifying myself against anything that might penetrate and possibly harm me? Will I “batten down the hatches” and look upon anything unfamiliar as a dangerous threat? Will I echo Simon and Garfunkel as they sang, “I am a rock… I am an island”?
Or will my edges be soft and vulnerable? Will they be easily punctured by the voice, the views, or the needs of another? Will I/we dare to open ourselves to the stranger? Will I/we dare to occasionally say to someone, “I don’t know. I might be wrong about that. Let me think about it”? Will we be humble and open to the needs of our neighbors?

The temptation in unsettling, uncertain, anxious times is to try and build as strong a wall as we possibly can. To seek safety. To armor-plate the edges of our lives.

And yet, as natural an instinct as shell-building seems to be, it is the polar opposite of the model of Christlikeness.

Jesus said, “Come to me, all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens and I will give you rest.”(Matthew 11:28, NRSV).

And the writer of 1 Peter said, “Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you.” (1 Peter 5:7 NRSV).

Yes, it is a vitally important time in our political life as a country. But I hope we can each find a way to look past the noise and smoke, ask the right question…

… and then perform our civic duty accordingly.

Abundant blessings;

Mar

Saggy Clay

By revruss1220 1 Comment

Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: adventure, change, clay, flexible, God, grateful, Isaiah, Jesus Christ, life, love, Potter, resilient, shape, wheel

“Yet, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand.”(Isaiah 64:8, NRSV)

Potters wheel photo One of my favorite courses in college was Pottery 101. We started out the class by learning all about the properties of clay. We then learned about shaping it into small, simple patterns, firing it in the kiln and coloring it with various glazes. But the real draw of Pottery 101 was the chance to try our hands at shaping that wet, luxuriant, earthy stuff on a genuine POTTER’S WHEEL!

It probably took me two weeks of trying, but eventually, I was able to successfully center my clay as it spun around on the wheel. This is the first, most important part of the pot-throwing process. If you can’t center your clay on the wheel, you aren’t going to be able to do anything else with it.

One of the important lessons I learned about clay during that class was that it is not infinitely malleable. You can only screw up your ashtray (or flower vase, or soup bowl, or whatever it is you are making) so many times.

At a certain point, the clay begins to lose its elasticity. You have to throw that lump away and start all over again with a different one.

Sometimes I wonder if that could be true about me, too. Sometimes I feel as if God has had me on the wheel for a long time, spinning, shaping, gently drawing me into the shape he wants… only to watch that rascally clay rebel and morph into something else entirely.

My life story traces a history of a lot of “do-overs” and “start again” moments… all of them necessary and all of them representing – I believe – a slightly more faithful shaping of the raw material of ME into the Potter’s image.

But lately, I have thought back to my Pottery 101 class and wondered, “How much more shaping is really possible with this saggy, worked over, stiff, inelastic Russell clay? Am I getting to the point where God might be on the verge of throwing up his hands in sheer exasperation and saying, ‘OK! That’s it. I’m done with this lump. Someone go get me another one.’”

Thankfully, however, the God of Israel, the Lord of all creation, the Source of My Life, is not a quitter. Yes, the material may be a lot less limber than it was… yes, the clay may occasionally bark and complain and say stuff like, “NO! I don’t WANT to do that! I’m too old! I’m not made to bend into that shape!”

But The Potter never gives up.

Of course, here in the day-to-day realm of human experience, the clay always has the option to decline the hand of the Potter. Any of us, at any time, can say, “Naw. Thanks anyway. I’m done. No more shaping. No more nudging. No more jabbing and poking me into shape. Let’s just leave this whole thing the way it is.”

You and I can stiffen and resist and refuse all we want. But rest assured, The Potter will never give up on us.

Hallelujah! And amen.

Sep

Change is Good?

By revruss1220 2 Comments

Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: adventure, change, foundation, God, hope, identity, Isaiah 43, Jesus Christ, meaning, moving, new, prophet, retirement, stability, worth

Moving day I preach change all the time.

When some flavor of change seems to be looming on the horizon, I find scripture to cite to assure folks that God is not just GOOD with change but often actually goes out of his way to make it happen.

I’ll start my campaign with a little Isaiah 43:18-19 where the prophet speaks for the Almighty, saying, “Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old.I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it,”following with some Revelation 21 with “See, I am making all things new,” and then if none of that works, I will deliver the coup de grace with some 2 Corinthians action: “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!”(2 Corinthians 5:17, NRSV).

Easy to preach. Much harder to practice, as it turns out.

I am in the middle of a whole barge-load of change right now in my own life and am suddenly discovering the truth of the saying, “Babies with dirty diapers are the only ones who really appreciate change.”

First, there is the change of status from “working guy” to “retired guy.” I am barely two months into that brave new world and still a little shaky on my feet.

Now Joan and I are preparing to sell our house, pack up our world, and move from Overland Park, Kansas to Ft. Collins, Colorado.

It is a good move, one that will put us in a wonderful, healthy, friendly, very “beercentric” mountain community. We will be closer to Joan’s daughter and chief medical advocate. We will have quick access to some of the most amazing scenery in the entire U.S.

So what’s there to complain about?

Well, there is the whole MOVING thing, for starters. The packing, the cleaning, the lifting, the redecorating, the broken dishes… what a pain!

Then, once we are physically settled in to the new place, there is all the rest of the readjustment/reacclimating process. I have to find a new doctor… a new barber… a new church… a whole new set of friends… a new vet… a new mechanic… EVERYTHING! And I am completely convinced that none of them will be as good as the ones I have now.

Sometimes late at night, while Joan sleeps soundly beside me, I lie awake staring at the ceiling and ask, “What if I can’t make this adjustment? What if this is just all too much change for me to cope with?”

If I were completely honest about it, I suspect my real fear about this move is my suspicion that the core of my identity is somehow tied to this place where I have lived for nigh unto 44 years now.

It’s silly. I know.

But then I think of the Israelites and their forced march into exile in the year 587 BCE. Jerusalem was not only their home but was – according to sacred teaching – the actual, physical dwelling place of the God who called them.

Their home WAS their identity.

But then they discovered something extraordinary. There, in the middle of their exile lives in Babylon, they discovered the real source of their identity. There they were: thousands of miles from their home and the Temple… depressed and defeated. Their foundation was not just shaken but shattered. They had no idea if they were ever going to see their home again, let alone resume their status as God’s Chosen People.

But there – right in the middle of their darkest moment – the voice of God came to them through the prophet and told them, “Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease.”(Jeremiah 29:4-6, NRSV).

In other words, “Be Here Now. Don’t look for your purpose and identity anyplace other than where you are at this exact moment. I am with you in EVERY place, not just when you are in Jerusalem.”

Hmmmm. That is really good to know.

Do you think that applies to Ft. Collins, Colorado, too?

Jun

Uprooted

By revruss1220 2 Comments

Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: Abraham, adventure, calling, challenge, connections, decision, dislocation, disorientation, God, Jesus Christ, Kansas City, relationships, relocation, risk, uprooted, USDA

Roots-of-an-uprooted-tree-after-a-storm There is a controversy raging right now that is sending arcs of electricity dancing through the air between Kansas City and Washington, D.C.

If you do not live in either one of these cities, you are probably blissfully unaware of this epic feud.

The fun all began on June 13 this year when U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue announced that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will relocate the Economic Research Service (ERS) and National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) to the Kansas City Region.

It is a move that will potentially involve nearly 550 USDA staff members.

Folks in Kansas City were tremendously excited to hear this news. After all, it means a boost for the local economy, added prestige, and many potential new converts to The Magic of The KC Experience.

The USDA folks potentially affected by the move are… well, let’s say somewhat less than excited. At the joint staff meeting where the move was announced, many USDAers in attendance stood up and turned their backs on Secretary Perdue as he spoke.

They said the move would disrupt their social connections. They said it would upset their children’s educational progress. They say they are not willing to watch a major league baseball team that consistently fails to play at or above the .500 mark.

(OK… I just made that last one up. But they WILL say that once they think about it.)

Kansas City people feel miffed by the Washingtonians’ response.“What do you mean you don’t want to move here?” we ask. “We LOVE this city! And you will, too, once you taste our BBQ!”

Their (our) feelings are hurt. We see it as a negative judgment on our hometown by some snooty, high-falootin’ East Coasters. Heck, we say, they probably wonder if indoor plumbing even exists out here on the Great Plains.

Having experienced a forcible, cross-country relocation myself – in the summer between my junior and senior years of high school – I know nothing could be further from the truth.

So chill out, KC. It’s not about US at all.

What it IS about is the emotional and physical trauma that is an inescapable part of making this kind of move. People have to deal with the severing of every connection that defines them… whether social, religious, family, cultural, or community. They have to deal with the challenge of rebuilding all of those vital relationships, let alone figuring out which neighborhood to live in, where to shop, where to dine, and where to find a good bagel.

But as hard as the move is on the adult members of the family, it is probably even harder on the children.

It feels like an UPROOTING. And who would ever voluntarily subject themselves to THAT?

50 years ago this month I did exactly that. Mind you, not without great howls of protest and the conviction that life – as I knew it – was about to end. However, unlike the USDA staffers, I was utterly powerless to resist the pending upheaval.

But somewhere along the way, the funniest thing happened.

I don’t know what caused it, but at some point in the middle of my wailing and protesting, a switch inside me flipped. I came to the realization that I had the power to decide what kind of experience this was going to be.

I could decide that this was going to be a horrible, traumatic, worst-thing-ever experience.

Or I could decide this would be the opening of a new chapter of adventure and challenge in my life… a moment to be faced and seized and maybe even RELISHED.

And then after that realization dawned, the choice was easy. I opted for Door #2 and the rest – as they say – is history. And as a symbol of my new adventure, I decided I would take on a new identity. I decided that this would now be the time for my childhood name “Rusty” to go away, and my new, quasi-adult name “Russell” to emerge.

Of course, Sonny Perdue is not God. But just like Sonny Perdue, sometimes God calls us to be obedient to upheavals and uprootings from our comfortable circumstances.

Just ask Abram. Or Joseph. Or Moses. Or Mary. Or Joseph. Or Paul.

And I am sure most of the time there are a hundred good reasons we could offer as to why this uprooting is a really bad idea… about how much pain and discomfort this will cause us and our families… about how inferior a place Canaan is to Haran… and how we really would prefer to stay right where we are.

Or we can just decide to believe God is using this uprooting as a way to enlist us at the beginning of a new adventure of faith and obedience.

So… which will it be?

Sep

Caught in the rain

By revruss1220 1 Comment

Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: adventure, denial, Jesus Christ, joy, laughter, rain, shelter, storms, tragedy

caught in the rain It happened again.

We got caught in the rain.

For the second time this week, my wife and I decided we would go ahead and take a hike… even though the weather forecast said rain was likely.

And for the second time, the local weather forecasters proved to be annoyingly accurate. (When I want them to be right, they are wrong. And when I want them to be wrong, they are right. What’s up with that??)

In both instances the skies got dark, the temperature dropped dramatically, the winds started whipping the trees around, and the heavens opened up almost EXACTLY halfway through our hike.

Forge ahead? Turn back? Zero difference.

In neither case were we adequately prepared for the rain… despite the forecasts and my trusty weather radar app.

On the first hike we each had hoodies in the backpack; nice, long-sleeved fleece hoodies… with zero water repelling qualities.

The second time we didn’t even have those.

(Isn’t there a saying that begins something like, “Mad dogs and Englishmen…”?)

If something like this has ever happened to you, your reaction might have been similar to ours. We started out by shaking our fists at the storm… exasperated by its mean-spirited decision to ruin our outing.

Because, you know… storms are like that.

Next, we tried to hide from it. On the first hike the woods were pretty thick, so the tall conifers provided a measure of shelter. We hung out for a while under a particularly dense patch but then realized the storm was NOT going to blow over anytime soon.

Our next approach could best be described as “dejected trudging.” It was a kind of, “OK, this thing isn’t going to stop, we need to get back to the car, so let’s just grit our teeth and slog it out.”

Squish… squish… squish we went one unhappy step after the other.

Then it happened.

At some point, on both hikes, in the middle of the dejected trudging, a switch flipped; for both of us. A moment of awareness dawned, right there in the middle of the pelting raindrops. In nearly perfect synchronization, we looked at each other, started to laugh and said something like, “Well this is certainly an adventure, isn’t it?”

Our “moment” certainly didn’t make the rain stop… didn’t make our shoes less squishy, or warm us up at all. But it certainly did impart a different spirit to the remainder of the hike.

It made me wonder if there might be any rich veins of metaphor “ore” to be mined in this experience.

Like, for example, might there be any parallels between our experience of these actual, meteorological storms and other “storms” of life?

Such as; is it ever my tendency to start out denying the possibility of storms… to embark on the journey without paying any attention to the clouds gathering on the horizon?

Maybe.

Or to react initially with anger when the rain actually does arrive… to see it as a very personal, vindictive attack on ME?

Hmmmmm…

And then, is it possible that I might ever try to find some kind of silly, inadequate shelter in which to hide from the storm’s relentless presence? Or that I might then turn from my “hiding strategy” to a grim, teeth-clenched trudging acceptance of it?

Yes… it is entirely possible.

The real question is: do I ever arrive at the last stage – the stage of embracing the rain-soaked moment and seeing it as a kind of adventure? Am I ever able to shift gears and see the new outlooks and skills required of me by this downpour… skills that might have been needed, but were lacking heretofore?

In terms of a goal, “laughing in the rain” might be a little excessively Pollyanna-ish at this point. Some rainstorms (both the literal and metaphorical kind) are truly life threatening and dangerous.

But based on our recent hiking experience, I pray I will be able to spend significantly less time in the denial and angry fist-shaking stages and move more quickly to something hopeful and productive.

Abundant blessings…

Aug

“Unprecedented”

By revruss1220 Leave a Comment

Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: adventure, faith, God, Jesus, new, risk, unprecedented

Flood evacuees For the past few days, I have been utterly hypnotized by the news coverage of the recent events in Houston, TX and the visit of Hurricane Harvey.

I am guessing the fact that I have a son, daughter-in-law, and five grandchildren living in the Houston area probably makes me more attentive to Harvey-related news than the average bear.

But still…

(They are fine, by the way. Thanks for asking. They live in a part of the metro area that is on very high ground and is away from the worst of the flooding.)

I have watched spellbound as on-the-scene reporters from NBC, ABC, CBS, the Weather Channel, have all struggled to come up with new adjectives to describe what they are seeing.

When “incredible,” “amazing,” “unbelievable,” and “awesome,” all start to fall short, you know you are in the presence of meteorological greatness.

But the adjective that really caught my attention on Sunday was one that came from the mouth of the National Weather Service. It was the word “unprecedented.”

“Unprecedented.” As in, “…we have never ever seen anything like this before.”

And if THESE GUYS – the people who are supposed to keep detailed records of all the weather precedents – are using the word “unprecedented,” you know this is a BIG, DANGED DEAL. Maybe the biggest danged deal EVER!

See… when something has precedents you know how to behave. You say, “OK, the last time this happened, we did X. So we should probably do something very much like X again.”

But when you call it unprecedented (is it OK if I dispense with the quotation marks around the word now?), you are telling the world, “I got nothin’. Fresh out of answers over here.”

If I were a trained weather professional, I imagine I would be very reluctant to unleash the “U” word. I’d be afraid it would make me look… unprepared. Or unprofessional.

So why is it, do you suppose, that I have the sneaking suspicion that God continues to call me out into the “unprecendentednesses” of life?

I mean, it really seems that every time I discover myself standing at an intersection, between Path “A” and Path “B” with Path “A” representing familiar, precedented ground and Path “B” being strange turf, I could swear I hear God’s still, small voice whispering, “B, Russell. Go with B.”

It doesn’t help that you find stuff in the Bible like Isaiah 43:18 that says, “Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” Or Isaiah 65:17 where God says, “For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind.” Or 2 Corinthians 5:17 where Paul says, “If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new.”

To be clear… I am pretty sure unprecedented floods with historic property damage and disruption of life are NOT on God’s “approved” list of adventures… Noah notwithstanding.

But when you read a few of these passages and see God’s handiwork, you begin to get the feeling God actually encourages unprecedentedness and newness… blatantly disregarding my preference for comfort and familiarity.

Who knows? Maybe he does.

Where does that leave a “safety seeker” like me?

Hmmmmm….

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Posts Tagged ‘adventure

Holy Unsettledness!

To Plunge or Not to Plunge…

The Right Question…

Saggy Clay

Change is Good?

Uprooted

Caught in the rain

“Unprecedented”

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