Adventure?
By Mike Rule

As you all know, I occasionally write a Reflection on the spur of the moment in a more informal fashion. Today's Reflection is one of those times.

I am sitting in a hotel room in Mineral Wells, West Virginia. I am not here by choice, but because of blown transmission. We were vacationing in Southern Tennessee taking a much needed break. We were travelling home on Jan. 1 2005 when the transmission in our van decided to take a vacation. We have been here ever since. Thanks to the efforts of Becky's parents and my dad, we will be headed home today with the van loaded onto a trailer. Once it is home I'll be able to repair it relatively inexpensively and at my leisure.

This was not my idea of how the new year was to start. Yet I have found amazing peace through it all even though it took a couple days to figure out what we needed to do. I started to stress about having trouble and God whispered one word to me: "Adventure." I realized in that moment that I had a choice. I could whine and complain, and be angry about the problem, or I could simply yield, receive it as from the Lord and trust Him. I could see the situation as a problem, or as an adventure. By the grace of God, I chose adventure. I have had a lot of ponderings about why, but though it all there has been peace that God knows what He is doing. This has been a deeper revelation of the fact that the problem is rarely in the circumstances, but in the attitude we choose in the midst of the circumstances.

The next time you have a problem, you can kick against it and get angry or depressed about it, or you can choose Jesus. But the only way I can choose Him is if I am willing to receive my circumstance as from Him. Do we really have a clue what God is up to in our lives even through what we define as trouble or problems? Can we fathom the thoughts He has, the plans He makes? Is He altogether like us? Of course not. This is why we must trust Him in all and through all. He knows what He is doing and we can choose Him only because He first chooses us. Amen!

I'll have more to write about this whole adventure I'm sure, but this is what I am pondering today.

Shalom friends
Mike