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A
Great Adventure
Life
has wonderful possibilities for good or for evil. It may
be a great adventure upon which we go, with ever changing
scenes, through which we may march with our heads up and a
song of victory in our hearts. To many life is this. On
the other hand, life may mean a servitude in which the
weary, discouraged, and almost hopeless prisoner of fate
marches on toward an eternal dungeon. One may be a slave
to worry, fear, foreboding. Life may be a series of
defeats. But this is not the normal life. No one need live
such a life.
Life was intended to be triumphant, joyous, prosperous. It
was meant to be filled with gladness, with light hearts
and with singing. Facing life as we are capable of facing
it we can make it an ever-ascending pathway with our
vision expanding to an ever remoter horizon. Life may be a
series of discoveries. A great American said, "I
shall pass this way but once." Each day there is new
territory to be explored, new experiences to be had.
The terrain of our life is largely of our own choosing. We
may go on the upland way or down through the swamps. We
may have the fragrance of flowers and of fruit, of pines
and cedars, or we may have the miasma of decaying
vegetation. Life is full of boundless possibilities. It is
a great continent lying before us awaiting exploration.
Shall we go through it with bowed heads and burdened
shoulders or shall we cast off our burden, lift up our
heads, and be men and women in the midst of a great
adventure?
Explorers do not always have an easy time. Frequently they
have great difficulties to overcome. But exploration gives
zest to life. The constantly changing scenes always bring
freshness of interest. The difficulties and privations of
the past are quickly forgotten in the inspiring prospect
that lies before us. We need to cultivate in life the
spirit of the explorer. We need to develop our
possibilities, our capabilities, and have the inspiration
of a great purpose.
It is so easy to say, "Oh, I do not amount to
anything. I never can be anything. I never can do anything
worth while," then to settle down in the prison house
of this idea and attitude and never be free, not because
we might not be free but because we do not choose to be
free. So often people say, "My life is not worth
living." Every life is worth living, but every life
is worth living right. So many lives are like an airplane
that is so heavily loaded it can never gain altitude.
There are some things of which we must rid ourselves in
order to live a normal life. A bird entangled in the grass
cannot fly. It must first be freed from its entanglement.
In like manner we must be loosed from our entanglement to
have freedom of life. Our entanglements are often of our
own making. We build our own prisons; we shut ourselves up
in our own cells. Circumstances can never long imprison us
if our spirits are free. Has not someone written,
"Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a
cage"? The free spirit cannot be imprisoned. Let us
not be content with servitude. Let us cry out with Patrick
Henry, "Give me liberty," and then strike with
the sword of a determined will to cut our way through
whatever may imprison or hamper us. Do you say, "This
is easier said than done"? True, but it can be done
by everyone. It is well within the possibilities of each
of us.
What are we getting out of life? In the first place, we
can get out of it no more than we put into it. So if we
are getting too little out of our lives, if they are
unsatisfying, or impoverished, or hemmed in, it is be
cause we are putting too little into them. Our lives are
what we make them. It is not how long we live but how
intensively we live, how full of worthwhile things we fill
our lives that make them worthwhile and satisfying.
Life in reality is what we are within. Circumstances are
the casket in which lies the jewel of personality. The
value is not in the casket but in the jewel. Therefore,
life is not made up of favorable or unfavorable
circumstances, nor of possessions either many or few, nor
of recognition or the lack of it, nor of honors given by
others. It is what we are that gives quality to all these
things when they come into life. We can take musical
sounds and blend them to produce either harmony or
discord. Things can be made either helpful or harmful.
Chemical elements can be combined to create wholesome
things or poisonous things. It depends upon the elements
we put into our lives and how we combine them as to
whether we have happiness or unhappiness. If we put into
our lives selfishness, disregard of others, unkindness,
discourteousness, ill-temper, complaints, murmuring,
distrust, doubts, fear, hate, malice, envy, covetousness,
and the like, we shall inevitably have bitterness,
dissatisfaction, sorrow, and similar things in our lives
as the natural result. Let us not say that God makes our
life as it is, or that it is our lot or that people wrong
us.
No, we are making the quality, if not the form and outline
of our lives. Circumstances alone neither make us nor mar
us. It is our reaction to circumstances that produces
results in us. What ruins one makes another. The things
that are obstacles in life to some become stumbling
stones, but to others stepping-stones, according to the
use made of them.
So after all, what we shall have in life is our own
choice. We are the architects of our own lives. If we
build with noble materials, carved with patient care, we
shall have beauty and grace in our lives. If we put into
them love, loyalty, gentleness, meekness, kindness, faith,
forbearance, patience, hope, we shall not fail to draw
good dividends from all these things, dividends which
shall rejoice our hearts, cause our eyes to sparkle, and
the song of gladness to well up.
The purpose of life is not merely to have a good time, to
gratify the senses, to eat, drink, and be merry. Its high
and holy purpose is the building of character. Good
character is the basis of real happiness. The poet has
said,
"Only
the holy and innocent sing
Out of a bosom where pleasures abide."
The
process of character building is not always easy, but it
is always profitable. Each of us has capacity to develop a
great character, a noble and beautiful life which cannot
be unhappy. In such a soul there is a depth into which
trouble never can reach. No matter how trials and troubles
may press in upon the life there is a calm and undisturbed
peace at the very center of life. There is a joy that
springs up on the darkest days. There is a light that
shines in the deepest night. Life must have its discipline
and its difficulties to make it of value, to give it
character. Iron ore is of little value until it passes
through the fire and is purified, tempered, and shaped.
The chisel must bite deeply into the marble again and
again before the angel in it looks out. Paint of little
value, when carefully spread upon the canvas by a great
artist becomes of rare beauty and worth. Likewise the
little things seemingly valueless in our lives become
richer than a king's ransom when their possibilities are
developed.
The Christian life of many people is unsatisfying. Instead
of being joyous with the elements of heaven it is
burdensome. There are two causes for this. If when we come
to God we still cling to the things of the past and try to
graft Christianity upon our old lives, we shall not have
the fruits of righteousness. There must be a break with
the past. There must be a newness of life. We must be new
creatures. Gone with the old life that is forsaken will be
many of the causes of heartaches and sorrows and burdens
of the past. However, if when we come to God we give up
many things that have gone far to make up life for us in
the past and we do not replace these things with something
just as good or better we impoverish ourselves and our
lives become barren and unsatisfying.
We should fill our lives with the better things, the
pleasant things of righteousness, of truth, nobility, and
service, that make life rich for ourselves and profitable
to others. We need the freshness and beauty of true
spirituality. We need activities—interesting and
profitable things.
God said to us, "Rejoice and be glad." The
Christian life is full of wonderful possibilities. I do
not mean merely the formal and empty shell of Christian
profession. I mean the inner divine life begotten by the
Holy Spirit. A life spent in exploring the kingdom of God
on earth is always an interesting and attractive and a
happy life.
Let us make our lives a great adventure. It is our
privilege now and then with heart and mind to make an
excursion to heaven, there to sit and meditate beside the
river of God. We can go back through history and become
acquainted with the saints of old. We can have fellowship
with their joys. We can drink of the "rivers of
pleasure" and eat of the "honey out of the
rock." We can live love's way; bask in the sunlight
of heaven. We can "run and not be weary, and walk and
never faint."
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