<\/p>\n
\u201cLife is either a daring adventure or nothing. To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable\u201d (Helen Keller).<\/p>\n
WHAT DO WE DO WHEN WE\u2019RE PRESENTED WITH SITUATIONS THAT ARE STRANGE AND UNEXPECTEDLY DIFFICULT? Do we back away from them? Like a lazy river meandering down the course of least resistance, do we do that which is easiest?<\/p>\n
There is a sense in which courage is the main quality that life requires of us. The word \u201ccourage\u201d comes from the Latin cor<\/em> (\u201cheart\u201d). To have courage, then, is to have \u201cheart,\u201d and that\u2019s assuredly what we need. We need to be brave-hearted rather than faint-hearted, willing to take life as it comes and deal with it honorably. Life holds little good for us if we\u2019re always retreating.<\/p>\n Courage, however, is a different thing than some people imagine. The truly courageous aren\u2019t foolhardy \u2014 that is, they don\u2019t throw themselves unnecessarily into difficult spots. And when it comes to true adventure (as opposed to recreation or entertainment), the wise don\u2019t go looking for it. As Louis L\u2019Amour wrote, \u201cWhat people speak of as adventure is something nobody in his right mind would seek out, and it becomes romantic only when one is safely at home.\u201d Real cowboys don\u2019t make a big deal about being \u201cadventuresome.\u201d<\/p>\n Yet when adventure comes calling, we should be ready to enter into it openly and actively. Too often, we turn away from adventure for no better reason than that it would be too much trouble to deal with. We\u2019re comfortable in our familiar habits, and so we wish to stay put. (Readers of J. R. R. Tolkien will immediately think of Bilbo Baggins at the beginning of The Hobbit<\/em>!) Yet we miss much of the tang of life by our reluctance to be bothered. As G. K. Chesterton wrote, \u201cAn adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.\u201d<\/p>\n There is nothing life can do to hurt us as much as we hurt ourselves by our unwillingness to embrace life and live it fully. There are certainly times to be passive, but when the time to be active arrives, we don\u2019t help ourselves or anyone else by defaulting and doing nothing. Lives that make a difference are lives that go forward!<\/p>\n \u201cLive venturously, plucking the wild goat by the beard, and trembling over precipices\u201d (Virginia Woolf).<\/p>\n Gary Henry \u2013 WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com<\/p>\n