ad·ven·ture [ad-ven-cher]: noun, (verb ad·ven·tured, ad·ven·tur·ing).
- An exciting or very unusual experience.
- Participation in exciting undertakings or enterprises: the spirit of adventure.
Here’s a sweet intro for my weekend post: today Rebekah and I received our invitation for the July 6th festivities in Midland, Michigan, a love-feast featuring our son, Andrew, and his betrothed, Alicia.
This weekend they’re together again in Kiev, Ukraine, where Alicia is finishing up four years teaching music in an international school. I’m looking forward to hearing about their Saturday visit to Chernobyl, the infamous site of the catastrophic 1986 nuclear meltdown disaster.
But there are so many adventures to tell we’ll likely never get caught up. Alicia signs every email “Alicia Pashby, Music Enthusiast and Travel Addict;” it’s one of the reasons – many – that we know she and Andrew are perfect for each other. We don’t have to hear about all the adventures; it’s enough to know they are out there, together, engaging the adventure that is the gift of life with the enthusiasm and passion we were all created to enjoy.
ADVENTURE: And it never gets old. In fact, going on 34 years into our marriage adventure, Rebekah and I are just as excited and full with anticipation as the day we cranked up our “I think I can; I think I can” Chevette and drove off to our first adventure together for my senior year at Stetson University.
Adventure? You bet. Here’s the definition again: “an exciting or very unusual experience; participation in exciting undertakings or enterprises: the spirit of adventure.” Being a preacher’s husband is and always has been all of the above, and then some.
Being a follower of Jesus comes loaded with the same quality of exhilaration. Every day is a new opportunity to live an enthusiastic demonstration of the New and Living Way. That’s one more reason we’re so thrilled that Andrew and Alicia are beginning to live this adventure together. Their natural enthusiasm for life coupled with their sincere commitment to follow Jesus adds up to a recipe for fullness and serendipity beyond anything most people ever imagine!
PROMISED LAND: Last January Rebekah and I stood on Mount Nebo and looked into The Promised Land. It was the same view Moses had when God showed him everything… and then broke the news that Moses, personally, wasn’t going to get to go in.
There it was, The Promised Land, spread before us like an invitation. And here the future is – every day – spread before each one of us like an invitation.
I think about that moment sometimes, when I wonder what God has in store for today, for tomorrow, for next week and for next year. And I’m always (mostly) excited and ready to move into the Promised Land and to follow Jesus with passion and with joy.
That’s the exact image I have for Andrew and Alicia. Standing there on Mount Nebo together, hand in hand, looking out into the future, committed to the promises but wondering exactly what those promises are going to look like, as they go forward – in the strength of believing – to posses the land.
My God is faithful – DEREK
Reading the story of Moses and his denial from God to enter the The Promised Land, I always thought, wow…to be so close…to work so hard…to have it in sight…
It must have been such a disappointment to Moses and too, his people.
When I understood the “why” of why he was not allowed to enter…it became a bit more clear. Moses was in disobedience to an Abrahamic covenant, namely circumcision.
Here, for me, the concept goes amiss, and rational thought just bangs my brain to shreds and here’s why:
Thou shalt not comment murder…
Evidently, the blood on Moses’s hands, of countless thousands of murders (thou shalt not comment murder, remember?) was acceptable to God, but failing to perform a circumcision was a deal breaker and Moses was never to set foot in the promised land.
What?? How can this make any sense to anyone? How can anyone say this is just?
But, despite the glaring inconsistency of Gods reasoning I was still feeling bad for Moses…
Then I remembered that none of it actually happened the way it is written in the Bible, Its highly doubtful that any of it happened at all.
Then I felt better for Moses…
Tim
Andrew and Alicia, looking into an amazing future full of promise and possibilities = priceless.
Moses and the story of a Bronze-Age people learning what it meant to live in community and in relation to God = lots of inspiration and even more questions.