Exporing

Here are a few cool things I enjoyed from reading yesterday. They're from Wide Awake by Erwin McManus.

You have to start making yourself flexible and pliable again, because if you stop learning, you will stop growing and will never create a life beyond the one you have right now.

When you are called out by God, you have to take on a learning mode that recognizes you are called by God to explore unknown territories and go to uncertain environments. To some of you, God is literally saying, 'You need to leave your country, your relatives, your house and go to a place you've never known if you are gong to live the life of your dreams.'

The question remains, though: are you living up to your calling? Are you maximizing your God-given opportunities? Abram was called out to greatness, and it changed not only his life but the lives of generations to come. Ironically, those who don't have the opportunity to live a life worth dreaming of need you to pursue great dreams for them. They need you to live up to your opportunity so they might have one. So you have a ob? Great. It's the job you have, not the job you want. But the job you have is better than the job you don't have, so you settle for the job even though you don't want it. You just settle there, and you're miserable. But you're paralyzed by fear because you stopped growing, you stopped learning, you stopped exploring, you stopped discovering, and you stopped dreaming.

I wonder if some of you need to move to Tibet or maybe India or South America. Or maybe you need to find a way to deal with the issue of AIDS in Africa. Is it possible that to create the life of your dreams, you need to get up and leave what you know and relinquish the security of what you have in order to discover what you only see in your imagination? Remember, there is always a hero within you waiting to be awakened - the hero is the explorer.

Sometimes we think that if we leave everything we know, it's going to get worse from there. But it is possible you'll never find greater contentment or joy or exhilaration until you're willing to give up what you know and what you have for what awaits and exists int he unknown.

The tension here, of course, is that a part of the wonder and power of a childlike imagination is that children have to fear of being wrong. And for us to grow and thrive we must be willing to fail.

That's good for today. I know the last paragraph doesn't really fit with the rest, it was several pages from the first section. He was talking about having a childlike curiosity and imagination, we usually lose ours when we strive to become a grown-up. That's a shame. God has been encouraging me lately to ask Him questions. I like the answers! So, ask questions of God and of the people and things around you. Explore, create, dream. Blessings on this hot Lord's day.