You may be thinking to yourselves “What, Philip? I thought you were all about challenging people to live adventurous lives?” And, if you thought that, you’d be correct . . . to a degree. I love adventure, and I want more people to experience true adventure. However, I’ve learned through the years that not even adventure satisfies. If you are living for adventure your life will quickly lose meaning. That’s what happened to me.
“This Too is Meaningless” (Ecclesiastes 2:19b)
Let’s turn back to our old friend King Solomon (who I mentioned a few blog posts ago), the wisest man to have ever lived. He tells us in Ecclesiastes chapter 2 verses 1-3a and 10-11:
“I said to myself, ‘Come now, I will test you with pleasure to find out what is good.’ But that also proved to be meaningless. ‘Laughter,’ I said, ‘is madness. And what does pleasure accomplish?’ I tried cheering myself with wine, . . . I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure. My heart took delight in all my labor, and this was the reward for all my toil. Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun.”
Oh Solomon, thank you again for your wise and depressing words. But his words are true, aren’t they? Haven’t you felt this way? I have. Adventure is great, but you can’t find your reason to live in it. If all your life is about adventure, at the end of your life you will look back and it will all feel like fluff and wasted time.
When we go snowboarding, skydiving, cliff jumping, bungee jumping, paragliding, scuba diving, or whatever else, we feel a thrill and we want to experience it again. And it’s fine to want that, but it’s easy to start living for this thrill or the sense of accomplishment. This needs to stay in it’s place or else it will carry us off to dangerous places.
Adrenaline Junkies
Let’s look at a common scenario. You might not be an adrenaline junky, but perhaps you are an experience junky, or adventure junkie, or even a pleasure junky. These are people who live for these experiences because of the feeling/sensation it gives them. Instead of these things being a part of their life, it becomes their reason for living. Instead of adventuring every Saturday, they start sacrificing other things so they can fill this desire more.
Maybe they start missing work, or showing up late. Maybe they pour more and more of their paycheck into filling the craving, and soon they can’t pay rent or afford food. Perhaps they start caring more about this desire than they do people. In fact, they re-arrange every element of their life so it can feed this desire. Now tell me, doesn’t this sound like an addiction? Or like slavery?
This is what happens when you try to find your reason for living in adventure. To be honest, this has been me in the past. This way of living has dragged me down to some depressing, hopeless, and dangerous places. So, it’s out of sympathy and concern that I ask you to strongly consider if that paragraph above describes you in any area of your life.
The Healthy Adventure Lifestyle
Everything needs their place. Life is about balance. Friends are good, but you can’t be living for your friends, same with romance, money, comfort, pleasure, and especially adventure. When it comes to adventure, it’s good to desire it, but.it will never satisfy us. We first must be satisfied by God, then we can find enjoyment from adventure out of the overflow.
Brother Andrew, a famous author, missionary, and WWII veteran, sought after adventure to a dangerous degree. He was reckless in the war. Somehow he survived, but he admitted that even his grand adventures in the war never satisfied him. However, when he started following Jesus, his focus was on loving God and loving others. With this as his purpose, he found himself in unbelievable adventures that truly did satisfy his heart and soul. His didn’t focus on fulfilling his crave for adventure, but as he followed God, God knew how to fill and satisfy all of his desires.
This is what God does. I’ve experienced it myself and it’s wonderful. However, it’s a constant battle to keep my focus on God. Still, it’s worth the fight.
How have you struggled with idolizing adventure? Or, what have you done to help you put the desire for adventure into a healthy balance?
To read more about Brother Andrew and his grand adventures, check out his story here.
If you are still uncertain as to what an Idol is, check out my original post Breaking Down Our Idols
