“This is my command—be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid or discouraged. For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” – Joshua 1:9

Today is Thursday, January 5, and it’s officially the last of the Twelve Days of Christmas. That makes this as good a time as any to talk about the new title for my blog: “Tales from the Great Adventure!”

I’ve used several titles over the five-year life of this space: First, The Life-Charged Life; then, Life, Gratitude, Faith, & Passion; and – most recently – Faith and Thinkology. The move to rename the blog now, at the beginning of another New Year, fits with my intention to approach all of 2017 – writing and living – through the consistency of this particular prism.

Approaching life as an adventure – a Great Adventure – is not a new theme for me. Fact is, Rebekah and I have always engaged our life together as an ongoing story, and the word “Adventure” has fit beautifully much of the time. Sometimes the life story is a drama; often it can be comedy; on rare occasions the best descriptor has been tragedy; then there has also been a lot of poetry, much inspiration, some mystery, barely any science-fiction, and absolutely no true crime! But always, as a consistent undercurrent, this life is a Great Adventure.

You see we all live in some kind of a story, even if we’ve never thought of life that way, and the constant invitation of Jesus is to live a better story. And here’s the kicker – I believe we can chose the kind of story we want to live, or at least chose how we think about it, how we frame the conversation.

I like the way that God instructed Joshua when he was looking forward into an uncertain future.

“Be very brave and strong as you carefully obey all of the Instruction that Moses my servant commanded you. Don’t deviate even a bit from it, either to the right or left. Then you will have success wherever you go. Never stop speaking about this Instruction scroll. Recite it day and night so you can carefully obey everything written in it. Then you will accomplish your objectives and you will succeed. I’ve commanded you to be brave and strong, haven’t I? Don’t be alarmed or terrified, because the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” – Joshua 1:7-9

These verses from Joshua are good words for today: encouraging, inspiring, challenging, elevating, sometimes a little unnerving. But that’s God for you, especially in the context of active discipleship; the adventure is on!

– DEREK