A year ago we began an adventure where we moved to Las Vegas, “Sin City”. Over the followng months we drove across the United States three times, stayed in a couple of different houses, entered into a purchase agreement (more on that later), and jumped into a ministry that had been in the midst of transition and unknowingly was about to step into a deeper transition. Within in hours of accepting the position, I was on a plane back to Vegas to interview a potential staff person. Four days after returning to Lincoln, we loaded up the mini van and drove across the country. Two hours before arriving in Vegas we digitally signed a short term rental agreement. Two days later we celebrated Easter with our new church family and welcomed our kids who flew in to begin to get to know our new community.
Over the past year we have had many new experiences and depending on your perspective you could call them adventures, struggles, obstacles, or opportunities. Over the next 10 days I am going to share the top 10 things I have learned.
The first learning is to always enjoy the adventure. There are many things that happen in our lives, some of them expected and chosen, others that are unexpected and shocking. We don’t always get to choose what happens in our lives, but we do get to choose how we respond. Many of us have heard this saying, but few of us have been able to live it out. Over and over again this past year, we have had the opportunity to be focused on what is happening right around us or to enjoy the adventure – many times not knowing where it was going to end up. I loved driving through Nebraska (for the firs 30 minutes), Colorado, through the Rockies, across Utah, the tight valley in Arizona and the beginning of Nevada. It was amazing getting to see places I had never seen, though many of the mountain miles were a lot more relaxing in our car versus when we were in the Penske moving truck. Those were easy times to enjoy the adventure, things were new, fun, refueling, exciting. Over the next weeks and months, very little turned out the way we thought that it would and we had to choose to enjoy the adventure or let the unstable and unexpected bring us to frustration and regret. There were moments and days that life felt much more like a train wreck than an adventure, but after a year we are celebrating the adventure of new people, new community, new experiences (nothing like living in Vegas), and new opportunities.
We are becoming people who choose to enjoy the adventure of life, that choose to experience the new, and dream of the possibilities that could become reality. No matter what happens, I think it is important to choose to enjoy the adventure of where our lives bring us. We have been blessed over the past years to experience adventures that have shaped us, encouraged us, developed us more into who God is creating us to be. I encourage all of us to enjoy the adventure.