I’ll go on and say something. I am quite bored with my job. I get depressed because I’m so often there and I believe I’m doing nothing and I look around and wonder “Where did I go wrong that I am stuck here?” If there is one thing in my life that can really bring me down, it’s being there. When I’m on the computer, I at least feel like I’m doing something.
I want more.
My guess is, I’m not the only one. I look around often and think about how so many people go to their jobs and that’s it. It is almost like we live only to live to the next day and then only to the next day. I wonder how many people get on their deathbeds in the end and wonder what they really accomplished.
My generation grew up as the gaming generation. I sometimes wonder if those created a need or filled a need. What do I mean? I mean adventure games sell through the roof. Everyone wants to be the hero of the game. My belief is that they create a temporary filling of a need.
At this point in our lives, many of us couldn’t get out and face the world. We wanted to pretend though. I find growing up there are still many of us who like to pretend. In my own imagination, I’m the apologist out on a mission to combat evil. Each new heresy starts for me the Smallville theme song of “Somebody Save Me.” I picture every non-Christian saying that. Each one is a soul worth fighting for.
I don’t think this desire is anything new. Look at the old stories in Greek and Roman mythology of great heroes and battles and adventures. Look at Christian literature even such as the tales of Beowulf. Something in us greatly longs for this adventure. We don’t mind the danger even! In fact, we want it to be dangerous!
Go to your movies sometimes and watch the movies guys go to see. Now think about this. When a guy goes to see James Bond, is he not screaming in some ways that he’d like to be James Bond? Wouldn’t he like to be the spy out there saving the world and winning the girl? (While I can’t condone Bond’s sex outside of marriage, we can all understand the desire to win the lady.)
Yes. We want it. I wonder how many of us look at the world with that longing for adventure. Recently visiting my grandmother at her new assisted living place, I was in her room with her and my Dad and heard some man outside speaking loudly and angrily. I stepped out to see some big guy walking down the hall away. Nothing came of it, but I kind of wanted it to. I would have loved some adventure to happen.
It hasn’t really yet, but I keep hoping it does. I keep trying to remember that in some ways, all of life is an adventure. It’s just hard to see the adventure in many places. I sometimes wonder what it will be like in the end when I look back through the revelation of God and I can say “Now I understand, and it was right that you allowed me to go through that.”
Of course, on some level, we all know it is. We just have a hard time believing it. It’s easy to talk the talk of faithfulness. (Another rant of mine with church language for another day.) It’s harder to walk it. We all can easily say we’d die for Christ, but considering how hard we find it to put up with some things. I wonder if we mean it. On another level though, I think dying for Christ is the easy part. Living for him is the hard one.
Have I strayed some? Yeah. But then, maybe this is the way of the adventurer. Maybe this is just going where the road takes me. I shall simply have to wake up tomorrow and see. What will the day hold? Danger? Debate? Love? A new challenge? Who knows? I shall simply have to trust what I will know to be true in the end. It is working together for my good as Romans 8 tells me.
I do hope tomorrow is adventurous though, or rather, that I can see the adventure in whatever happens.
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