Wild Goose Chase: Reclaim the Adventure of Pursuing God

When Christianity turns into a noun, it becomes a turnoff. Christianity was always intended to be a verb. And, more specifically, an action verb. The title of the book of Acts says it all, doesn't it? It's not the book of Ideas or Theories or Words. It's the book of Acts. If the twenty-first-century church said less and did more, maybe we would have the same kind of impact the first-century church did.

We need to quit living as if the purpose of life is to arrive safely at death.

When God puts a passion in your heart, whether it be relieving starvation in Africa or educating children in the inner city or making movies with redemptive messages, that God-ordained passion becomes your responsibility. And you have a choice to make. Are you going to be irresponsibly responsible or responsibly irresponsible?

Has God ever called you to throw something down? Something in which you find your security or put your identity? It's awfully hard to let go, isn't it? It feels like you are jeopardizing your future. And it feels like you could lose what is most important to you. But that is when you discover who you really are.

Please read prayerfully what I'm about to write. When God puts a passion in your heart, whether it be relieving starvation in Africa or educating children in the inner city or making movies with redemptive messages, that God-ordained passion becomes your responsibility. And you have a choice to make. Are you going to be irresponsibly responsible or responsibly irresponsible?

Søren Kierkegaard believed that boredom is the root of all evil. I second the notion. Boredom isn't just boring; boredom is wrong. You cannot simultaneously live by faith and be bored. Faith and boredom are antithetical.

Perhaps the LORD will act in our behalf.” Don't play defense with your life. Play offense with your kids, your wife, your life. Don't look for the path of least resistance. The hard way is the best way! And quit living as if the will of God is an insurance plan. Dare to dream great things for God.

Your worst days are never so bad that you are beyond the reach of His grace. And your best days are never so good that you are beyond the need of God's grace. Every day should be a day of relating to God on the basis of His grace alone. —JERRY BRIDGES

I've been challenged by the action-oriented approach to Scripture proposed by Peter Marshall, former chaplain of the United States Senate. I wonder what would happen if we all agreed to read one of the Gospels until we came to a place that told us to do something, then went out to do it, and only after we had done it, began reading again? There are aspects of the Gospel that are puzzling and difficult to understand. But our problems are not centered around the things we don't understand, but rather in the things we do understand, the things we could not possibly misunderstand. Our problem is not so much that we don't know what we should do. We know perfectly well, but we don't want to do it.

Most of us will have no idea where we are going most of the time. And I know that is unsettling. But circumstantial uncertainty also goes by another name: adventure.

I want to see God do thing in me and through me that I am absolutely incapable of so I can't possibly take credit for them.

In the words of one psalmist, "Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart." When we delight ourselves in the Lord, new desires are conceived within us ... And those divine desires become an internal compass that guides us ...

When it comes to doing the will of God, God-ordained passions are far more important than any human qualification we can bring to the table. In fact, God often uses us at our point of greatest incompetence. That way He gets all the credit ... When God puts a passion in your heart ... That God-ordained passion becomes your responsibility.

Hurry kills everything from compassion to creativity. And when you’re in a hurry, you don’t have time to get out of your routine, do you? No room for Spirit-led spontaneity. No time

According to the law of requisite variety, the survival of any system depends on its capacity to cultivate variety in its internal structures. Disequilibrium is life ... When I'm in a spiritual slump, nine times out of ten, something sacred has become routine ... one of the ways I snap out of a spiritual slump is by disturbing by routine and experimenting with spiritual disciplines.

God's love is proactive. He doesn't wait for us to get our act together. God always makes the first move. And we're called to follow suit.

If you want to impact someone's life, love them when they least expect it and least deserve it ... You might think, "But they don't deserve it." That's the point, isn't it?

So thank God for opposition. It forces us to pray like it depends on god, which it does. And it reconditions our reflexes in the process.

Here is the mistake so many of us make: we start out pursuing a passion and end up settling for a paycheck. So instead of making a life, all we do is make a living. And our deep-seated passions get buried beneath our day-to-day responsibilities.

We don’t know what we want. We’ve never defined our goals or values or passions, so we’re out of touch with our hearts’ desires. And our growing responsibilities have numbed us to the possibilities around us and the passions within us.

Jesus didn’t die on the cross to keep us safe. Jesus died to make us dangerous.

the reason many of us get stuck in the six cages—the cage of responsibility, the cage of routine, the cage of assumptions, the cage of guilt, the cage of failure, and the cage of fear—is for one simple reason: We want God to do something new while we keep doing the same old thing.

I'm not convinced that your date of death is the date carved on your tombstone. Most people die long before that. We start dying when we have nothing worth living for. Ad we don't really start living until we find something worth dying for. Ironically, discovering something worth dying for is what makes life worth living.

These are the words of him who is holy and true, who holds the key of David. What he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open. I know your deeds. See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut.

Spontaneity is an underappreciated dimension of spirituality. In fact, spiritual maturity has less to do with long-range visions than it does with moment-by-moment sensitivity to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. And it is our moment-by-moment sensitivity to the Holy Spirit that turns life into an everyday adventure.

I don't believe in coincidence. I believe in providence.