Mystery is History

As I wrote about in my last post, a longing for adventure is hard wired into each of our souls.  I believe that this longing is intimately connected with our view of the world around us.  Our sense of adventure is directly proportional to the mystery we allow to exist in the world around us.  This is not a fool's mystery that could be explained but instead is not, this is genuine mystery, the unknown, ideas and concepts that are beyond us and therefore draw us out into a story much larger and more grand than are own.  A story that encompasses ours but is not limited to its confines.

As we began to lose our sense of wonder and awe, the world became automated, robotic, predictable even - except that its not.  Somewhere along the way mysteries were studied, dissected, analyzed and put back together so that we could build formulas in an attempt to remove elements of the unknown - except we now know less than we knew then.  We fear mystery.  We avoid the unknown.

I know I do - my actions declare rather boldly that I would prefer to control life rather than experience it.  I try to fit God into my pocket to be carried around like a talisman instead of seeing Him as a shepherd, One who longs to guide and direct me along the path of my life.  The concept that our life on this Earth is one of mystery is unsettling to us because to grasp the mysterious life requires us to fully trust. Adventure cannot be had in a controlled environment - doesn't work that way.  Control negates adventure.  Mystery is the petri dish whereby adventure can be cultivated - without mystery there is no adventure to embark on.

Oftentimes we choose to control our lives because when we have control, we cannot be caught off guard or surprised, but rather remain in the driver's seat always knowing.  Why is it such a big deal for us to always know?  Knowledge is powerful but not singularly.  Knowing what you will do in ten years can be helpful, but it can also be limiting.  This is one of my greatest struggles.  I want to know where my foot is going to land before I pick it up to take a step.  I think that by knowing, somehow I will gain power over the successfullness of the outcome and therefore miss most of the entire point.  My Father is less interested in where my foot is going to land and is more interested in whether or not I will try to take a step - where that step takes me is secondary.  The point is the step, the point is the journey, the point is the process of learning to trust enough to take a step and not know where the next one will take you.  Peter would never have gotten out of the boat had he worried himself with where he was going to put his foot (on top of the water ended up working out just fine).  If he had worried about where he was going to step, he would have deduced that his foot had nowhere to go and therefore he could not possibly take a step.  Instead, he saw Christ, chose to follow and allowed Him to take care of the rest. 

This sounds warm and fuzzy but I do not intend it to sound that way.  Trust is ugly, faith is awfully messy at times because it requires that we voluntarily release control and choose vulnerability, something our society has not trained us to do.  In our me-first culture, nothing is more counterintuitive than choosing to be vulnerable, than choosing to embrace the unknown in hopes that you will be met there.  Our inability to be self sufficient demostrates our great need - our striving to run solo anyways demonstrates our great pride and desire for control, but taking an opportunity to relinquish control, to choose surrender, to choose to embrace the unknown demostrates our profoundly unique ability to trust.  To trust is to embrace mystery, to embrace mystery is to open oneself to an opportunity for adventure.