adventure life

Experiencing the Adventure Life

The day I woke up early to watch the sunrise on Mount Sinai in Egypt, our guide knocked on my door ten minutes before one in the morning! The next five hours involved hiking, negotiating camel rental with Bedouin tribesmen, riding precipitous mountain trails by starlight, rock climbing with little visibility, and shivering in near-freezing temperatures.

The expedition involved hard work and complex planning, but the result was the most profoundly beautiful and meaningful sunrise I’ve ever been privileged to witness. And when I stood there on the summit of Sinai, watching the light of newness pour over the horizon and into my soul, I realized that most of the great adventures of my life have been serendipitous surprises that had their roots in serious planning and preparation.

Tomorrow is worth the investment of our best intention and our passion. Simply put, if I hadn’t gotten the legwork done first, gotten up early, and used every ounce of energy to get up the mountain, I never would have seen the sunrise from Sinai. It’s a cliché to say that we only go round once, but it’s also a fact of startling moments. How could we possibly engage the great adventure that is the rest of our lives with anything but enthusiasm and imagination? Tomorrow is worth the investment of our best intention and our passion. Here’s how we can plan for and experience the adventure life every day.

1. Plan your work, work your plan.

Golfer Phil Mickelson once responded to the suggestion that a hole-in-one he made was nothing more than lucky: “I’ve found that the harder I work and the more I practice, the luckier I get.” What comes next in our lives has a better chance of being awesome when we go to the trouble of making plans and then following through.

2. We are people of great privilege.

It helps to remember that living in a free country, having access to the resources we take for granted every day, being able to rely on a roof over our heads, and—most especially—having direct control over what our future might look like are unusual privileges on this planet. When we think about the potential for the future, we’re in a unique and enviable position. Realizing this might just be the spark we need to make sure something happens.

3. I believe in what Scripture says, “We are created in the image of God.”

Doesn’t that demand a more passionate and imaginative response? There’s great expectation built in when we understand who we are and where we come from. When we realize we were not created for ordinary lives, then the extraordinary becomes more attainable.

4. Work up a great adventure bucket list.

This goes deeper than just places to visit and items to check off a list. This bucket list could challenge us to push the envelope, spread our wings, and enrich our relationships. Items could include:

  • Mentor other men through All Pro Dad.
  • Make my wife fall in love with me all over again.
  • Take responsibility for a Habitat build and make it happen.

6. The well-known poster reads, “A mind is a terrible thing to waste.” Well so is the rest of your life!

The potential sowed into each and every life simply calls for a response. Few people even scratch the surface of utilizing the capacity of their minds. The same is true of our spirits. Each new day is an opportunity to learn more, do more, be more, imagine more.

6. Think of what’s coming next in your life in terms of “quest.”

The idea of life as a great adventure can connect our imagination and our spirits to the language and the motivation of heroes! It may only sound like changing a few words around, but adventurers don’t do ordinary things. We’re not driving to work, we’re really on a mission to secure funding in order to save your family from peril! You’re not simply coming home to your wife, you’re entering the house, determined to win the heart of the fair lady!

Huddle up and ask your kids, “What is one thing you want to do in this life?”