The Wizard of Oz, Indiana Jones, and Scooby Doo: It's a Visual Media Salad

Life is full of hidden journeys and adventures. It is true that I may never actually get to go on a splendid adventure down the yellow brick road to the see the great Wizard of Oz; I may never go on a hunt for the Holy Grail or get chased by a giant boulder. But I get the chance to go on adventures of my own. Sure, they may not be the fun hikes through my neighbor’s backyard and into the green belt located not far from our homes, where I would come home wet and muddy, but I get to go on journeys through life that teach me things that no one person could teach me because it is something that comes through experience.

I look at friend’s of mine and the adventures they have chosen. My wonderful friend Campbell is serving the Lord in Hawaii for at least the next year after spending 6months on an journey with YWAM that took her to Hawaii and Cambodia. I get to read on facebook about a young man named Adam Fevella who lives right down the street from me, who has been investing his time into serving an orphanage in Haiti, so he travels there whenever possible. And really these are just two kinda wild examples of great adventures that have no doubt taken great faith!

But I then look at my own life. Right now, I have not been called to a mission field overseas, I have been called to live a life for Jesus Christ right where I’m at, and I will be completely honest that there have been moments over the last year or so that I have not wanted to be okay with that. I have a passion for missions and I want to go. I want to go live for a couple of years in some random country serving God, but right now, that is not in God’s Game book. Right now, his plan is to grow me and nurture me to be all that He has desired for me, so that then later in my life, when ever that time may be, I can go where ever He calls me and know that I am fully equipped for that journey.

I look back for instance over the last 6 months of my life; a lot has happened in me in 6months, more so than I thought possible. It’s funny how on a women’s retreat in the middle of October, I recognized some flaws I had within myself, and these flaws had an effect on my everyday life but they also would effect any sort of dating relationship I would try to pursue, if they were not corrected. These flaws were things like the fact that my patience was very small, and very little things would aggravate me  and I would get heated over very little things as well (even if I did not show my frustration). My track record for perseverance was not a good one either- if it looked like I was going to fail at something or I wasn’t going to excel at whatever it may be, I wanted no part in it at all. And if I can’t persevere through simple things than what makes me think I could persevere when hard trials of life come? My faith to some degree was rather weak as well. Yes, I was fully devoted to Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God, but honestly, I don’t know that I fully understood the power that He possess and that He really can do all things. And one last thing I realized, was that I needed to fully fall deeply, madly in love with God in a lover-beloved sort of way, not just the father-child relationship that any follower of Jesus knows.

The thing was though, I knew that just setting out to fix these things wouldn’t actually fix them. I would persevere through it and I wouldn’t be patient with myself either, and I knew this was no overnight process.

I really just allowed God to do his work. I now look back from where I am now over the last 6months, and while yes, I am most definitely still a work in process, all of the above issues have been tried, have been used, have been strengthened, have been renewed. If you know me very well, you will know that it has really been one situation in general that has really molded those things. A difficult situation that I have had to push through and persevere when giving up would be a much safer option, being patient that God will do His Work in His Timing and that timing can be a very long time, having faith that God knows what He is doing and that He is doing it for my good and the good of others involved, and it has also strengthened my strength in that it has depleted me of all personal emotional strength I’ve had and has forced me to rely on God’s instead. I must say that God has a lot of strength and a lot of patience, and I have to bank on his and not my own because well, mine’s long gone. But in this state of resting in Jesus, He has been able to mold me. He has been able to break my heart for others that my heart wouldn’t have broken for if I was still super strong. He has been able to soften my heart to know that He can do all things and He has the power to change people and change lives, something I don’t have the power to do, but He does. But most of all, I have been able to fall deeply, madly, crazily in love with Him. If you go read the post about the little black dot among all of the whites ones, that story came from that one night where God overwhelmed me with His presence and love.

I look at the present, and realize that I am on a great adventure. I’m on an adventure to God shaping me more into who He wants me to be, refining me and strengthening me, so that whatever happens next, I will be able to bear and push through with His Help and His Strength. Life is an adventure. There are surprises around every turn: sometimes there’s a monster chasing after you that you must trap using some ingenious techniques (Scooby Doo) and sometimes there are pleasant surprises, things that God will use to blow your socks off. Around each corner and bend, there is something to be learned, something to be gained. We are all students of the best teacher around, and no one student has it all figured out. It’s a journey; it’s an adventure; it’s life.