As little children, we loved the chance to explore something new. My little son Maximus and my daughter Abigail are into everything…and I mean everything. There is not one thing in the home they will not get their hands on.
Why? They are discovering. Right now so many things are new to them, so they experience it with great anticipation.
I remember as a kid being so thrilled to play a new game or discover a new area of land. My friends and I would go for long walks, searching for new territory or discovering a new field where we could play. Everything was seen as an opportunity to discover new experiences, learn new things and be stretched in our potential.
Adventure is so important. Our hearts breathe and flourish in the face of new challenges and unfamiliar opportunities that we embrace with faith. When we continue in adventure, our heart’s become alive and all of life flows from the heart. A heart alive is one that welcomes adventure!
As we got older, so many lost that wonderful spirit of adventure, being slowly given over to a life of monotony and stagnancy.
When I look at the faces of people around me, they carry a sense of deadness. Lights are on, but nobody’s home. No joy and little passion. Quite frankly, people look bored.
It has really occurred to me. People have lost the passion of living a life of adventure.
The Loss of Adventure
Instead, we have been trained to fill a cubicle and get paycheck. Nothing wrong with cubicle work, providing you are living and working out of deep passion. But millions grow up from a child-like heart that loves adventure into adults that have become zombies that have no sense of life—so they have to feed off of news, entertainment and amusement parks to feel anything. People end up in lifeless marriages, stagnant vocations and shallow relationships. Dreams are no longer pursued, but have become distant memories that collect desk along with our high school awards.
How Did We Get Here?
I have found a number of factors that have contributed to this dilemma that is causing people to slowly erode into an abyss of deadness.
1. Our hearts were broken.
Trace your story back to when you stopped living a life of adventure and passion. It can usually be linked back to a season of deep disappointment, loss or heart-break. When our hearts are broken without any healing and resolution, we carry the effects of this all throughout life. It usually manifests in a person not taking great steps of faith that involve risk.
2. We went the safe route.
A life that brings forth great fruit is not the safe route. We knew this as kids. If you wanted to enjoy the swimming pool, you had to jump into that deep end and go for it. Life is not meant to be controlled but experienced with great risk. Anything worth going after has a great deal of risk. Yet because of hurt, people became trained to gravitate towards “safe” things, when really they were moving towards lifeless things add no depth to the soul.
Our society has become conditioned to take the route of least resistance. Don’t rock the boat. Don’t make me uncomfortable. Our hearts long for adventure and faith living, but that cry has been dulled for the sake of pursuing a false world of safety.
Fear taught us to live for the comfortable. Our passion began to wayne, being substituted by lifeless routine.
3. We stopped trying new things.
Adventure means being open to new things. This means being willing to be stretched, challenged and even made uncomfortable. Its actually good for you, but millions of people avoid it at all costs. If our constant goal is comfort, then down the road, we kick ourselves, thinking, “Why didn’t I just try……”
One of the practical values we have in our home is that we are willing to try new things. This means trying new foods, attempting new experiences and being open to new relationships. We cannot make statements or opinions about something until we have at least tried it. And even then, there needs to be an openness to trying something again, as we all have our bad tastes and negative experiences that need another go.
We cannot let the fear of failure or the worry of embarrassment steal the value we experience when we step out and try new things. Whether they work out or not, we learn more than anything through the experience.
Question: What about you? Where did the sense of adventure get lost? Where does it need to be recovered in your life?