Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep?

Job 38:16, NIV (1978)

Life is a daring adventure, or it is nothing.

Helen Keller

There are times that I feel sorry for the children of this era. There are simply too many distractions! I realize just how old I am when I reflect on all of the modern conveniences we have in 2023 as compared to 1963. Back then, people never called you up and asked you where you were because telephones had a fixed location. If someone came home from working on a computer all day, it was because they had a job at NASA. The idea of video games had not even been thought of. If you wanted an adventure, it was not something you did virtually from the comfort of your favorite chair. You had to go outside and find one!

Finding adventure was my main pursuit when I was a boy. Whether it was flying kites in the field across the irrigation canal from our house when we lived in Colorado, or playing in the woods that were next to our house in Washington, or going to the creek a few blocks from our home in Texas, life came packed with adventure. When my parents got me a Stingray bicycle for Christmas when I was nine or ten, the scope of my adventures increased exponentially. When we moved to Wyoming on my 15th birthday and I got a car a few years later, the range of these adventures grew and grew. I can still remember coming home from work, loading up our dog and my camping gear, and just heading out for a day or two to the canyons and lakes that were an hour's drive from our home.

I mentioned that I realize how old I am now when I look at the changes to this world, but looking back, what I really see is just how blessed I am. I cannot imagine how different my life would have been had I possessed all of today's modern conveniences, but I do not think I would have had half of the fun I got to having while growing up. In fact, I still enjoy life's little adventures! Our kids, adults themselves now, have arranged several such adventures for us in recent years - adventures that have spanned from Idaho to North Caroline. We have got to enjoy exciting places like Yellowstone, Mount Rushmore, and Jekyll Island. We even got to "ride the Dragon's Tail" in our mini-van. Each year we take the teens from church on a five day camping trip to Estes Park, so that they can taste a bit of adventure for themselves, and get to do so in the incredible beauty of God's vast creation.

I have been blessed far beyond anything I deserve - I realize that - and I am thankful! I am so thankful to God for allowing me to enjoy a life that has been filled with wonder and joy. I cannot begin to fathom how empty my life would have been had I grown up with my face plastered to a cell phone screen, or a set of video game controls attached to my hand, but I am so grateful that I did not. I don't think that I would have liked it that much.

Having said that, I realize that this life is short no matter how many "adventures" we have packed into it. Furthermore if our blessings, whether in the form of adventure or electronics, get in the way of our service to God, then we better wake up. God has called us to a wonderful life, it is true, but it cannot be used up on selfish and trivial pursuits - it must be lived for Him! We are often tempted to just give Him a small portion of our time, Maybe a few minutes a day to ask Him for the "stuff" we need. Perhaps an occasional reading of the Bible when we feel guilty for not doing it as much as we should. Maybe we even carve out a full hour or two on a Sunday for worship if we are not too busy doing something else. But this is not the service we were called to!

The fact is that this life can be fun indeed, but we must not let our desire for fun things override our duty for service. The wonderful thing I have found is that they can be combined quite nicely, for service to God is a great adventure if we do it right. And, if we will remember to put God first, if we can remember to serve Christ with all of our hearts and teach others to do the same, well then, life can be an exciting adventure indeed. And then we can look forward to the biggest adventure of all - Heaven!

Isn't God good!