“Adventure. Excitement. A Christian craves not these things”
This is an exact line (adapted quote from the popular Master Yoda in Star Wars) proclaimed by a university student when he realised the club he was intending to sign up to was not the “Adventurous Students Club” but instead was the “Adventist Students Club”.
Adventist. Adventurous. A pretty simple mistake to make, right?
But is there really a difference between the two?
This student thought so. He could not rationalise how any Christian (let alone a Christian denomination that he’d never even heard of) could ever live exciting, thrilling and adventurous lives.
He’s not alone.
Many university-aged students think following Jesus is boring. They see it as attending church for a few hours a week, wearing clothes that are more in line with the 1950s than in the 2020s.
University aged students are looking for excitement, they’re looking for adventure, they’re looking for something to make their lives meaningful and they will search everywhere – whether that be at parties, music festivals, travelling the world or through activism.
They are looking for an adventurous and fulfilling life. Yet they will search far and wide, desperate for something to add meaning to their lives. They search through everything except through the church. Simply because they do not feel they belong. Simply because they do not feel that God can fill the void in their heart and in their identity.
But God is our identity is He not?
Do we have a misconception of what a life of following Jesus really entails?
Maybe following Jesus is not hogging our favourite pew or seat for one hour, of one day a week and then forgetting him for the rest of it. In fact, maybe God has called us to live extraordinary lives. The exact life that university students (and millions of others) are yearning for.
God’s people have a history of thrilling lives. It includes stories of people like David who faced down and slew a public menace who was taller, stronger and so threatening that not one Israelite wanted to face him. But buoyed by the power of God, David slew him and was coronated as a king.
Then there’s Daniel who risked his career and his life to stand up for his convictions – yet through God he survived a lion’s den, witnessed centuries of earth’s history unfold before him and he became the preeminent bureaucrat of his era.
It was women like Esther who not only worked her way into the inner circle of one of the most misogynistic and ruthless kings of the ancient world but in doing so she saved the lives of her people.
It was the Apostle Paul who lived on the road, never knowing what each day would bring yet empowered by God he survived snake bites, radical protests, death threats, stonings, shipwrecks and he defied powerful emperors.
The life of adventure. The life of excitement.
Founder of the Seventh Adventist Church, Ellen White also lived a life beyond extraordinary – she opened schools, hospitals, colleges, churches and publishing companies. She revolutionised the health system and reformed education. She led churches at a time when women never led churches and she wrote books at a time when women never wrote books. If there is a prize for the most extraordinary life lived, Ellen White would certainly be in contention.
None of these individuals could have ever anticipated such extraordinary lives, but through their faithfulness, God gave them meaningful, adventurous and thrilling lives to testify of Him.
God has called for all of us to live amazing, and extraordinary lives too. Lives where we are immersed in the power of God and where we would prefer to be living in danger with the Lord, instead of living in safety without Him.
That’s the life many of us yearn for, and that’s the life God wants to provide to all of us, to the point where Jesus would claim that He came to give us “life and life to the full.” (John 10:10)
Adventure. Excitement. Following Jesus is all these things.
WRITER: Timothy Pinzone, attends Epping Seventh Day Adventist Church, NSW.