Adventure As Life

Photo taken by the author

“Life is adventure, not predicament.”

– James Broughton

Adventure is what the human heart most desires.

It can come in different ways for different people.

For me, I find adventure in the things that are new for me, first-time experiences – such as travelling, and sports: skiing during the winter months, slalom skiing in the summers, golfing, road biking, and rollerblading.

In his book, “Wild at Heart”, John Eldredge states there are three core desires to a man’s heart: A battle to fight, an adventure to live, and a beauty to rescue. (1)

I sincerely believe he is both accurate and correct in this assessment of how men are wired.

In this post, I want to focus on that second key desire – the theme of adventure.

As I write this, I am staring out at the Simien Mountains range before my eyes, in the Northern Ethiopian highlands. I am sitting inside a “lodge” as my dinner is being prepared by the cook I hired, and other friendly, local assistance.

A red-headed rooster just walked past the entrance door and its presence cast a darkness covering the room, preventing the daylight in its fullness from entering through the doorway.

I can hear African music being played outside as the locals are jamming to it on the deck out front. And by “jamming”, I mean three or so men huddled around on stumps of wood for seats while listening to the tunes coming from a boombox.

As well, voices of the African language are being exchanged, words that I cannot understand; thus, are to be simply enjoyed as “background noise”, to accompany this section of writing.

Before I left on my first mission’s trip to Africa, which was my first time to Africa, my dad gave me a card which read, “When was the last time you did something for the first time?”

On the front of the card there is a really cool picture of a surfer, not too different from a guy my age, with adventure oozing out from his pores, staring out into the distant waters of the ocean, with an indescribable and radiant sunrise in the foreground.

I loved this card and it touched my heart deeply, mainly for the invitation that was awaiting to do something very fun and adventurous.

I wanted to go surfing right then and there.

It was an invitation to be adventurous.

Notes:

(1) John Eldredge, Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man’s Soul (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2001), 9.