It was not merely for entertainment that Bunyan expressed a walk with Christ as a pilgrim\u2019s journey, nor was it for Tolkien who illustrated the Christian life with a quest through Middle Earth, neither was that the case for Lewis who captured it with fighting battles alongside a mighty Lion in the land of Narnia. Bunyan, Tolkien, Lewis, and others chose tales of daring adventures because such an adventure is the reality of the Christian life.<\/p>\n
I am afraid that only a few would agree with that reality. What about you?<\/p>\n
Have you been taught that the Christian walk is an adventure?<\/p>\n
Have you experienced it for yourself?<\/p>\n
As a kid and young teenager I thought Christianity was so booooooorrrring! A life following Christ \u2014 was enduring a sermon, singing old songs, not having fun, and following rules. It was saying no to fun and avoiding any excitement. I thought following Christ made someone weak, and that it kept someone from experiencing life. Then I got out of the pew and experienced a personal walk with Christ myself. I also began to learn about Christians who have come before us \u2014 those who laid down their life and gave everything for the cause of Christ.<\/p>\n
I began to find that following Christ was like falling into a rabbit hole, transporting through the back of a wardrobe, and leaving the shire.<\/p>\n
Even though I have experienced a bit of the adventure and do believe that a walk with Christ is definitely such a journey I find myself forgetting. I\u2019m afraid that Bunyan\u2019s picture in \u201cPilgrim\u2019s Progress\u201d is not the image western Christians have in their mind when they think of Christianity. Even if they do view an adventure to be had it is reserved for someone else.<\/p>\n
I am a huge music fan with quite the eclectic taste. The other day my careful \u201cthumbs up\u201d and \u201cthumbs down\u201d on Pandora led me to Ed Sheeran\u2019s \u201cI See Fire\u201d.\u00a0 The song is from the soundtrack to one of the Hobbit<\/em> movies. Immediately I fell in love with the song with lyrics like: \u201cIf this is to end in fire then we should all burn together watch the flames climb high into the night\u201d and \u201cAnd if we should die tonight then we should all die together raise a glass of wine for the last time.\u201d<\/p>\n The song conjured up images of a band of brothers giving their lives to what they believed in. It drew pictures of danger and excitement.<\/p>\n Instantly thought what if we sang this at church. Minus the parts about the \u201ceye of the mountain\u201d and \u201cDurin\u2019s sons\u201d wouldn\u2019t be amazing if the collective voice of the church rallied to face the fire together.<\/p>\n Now I doubt our worship leader is going to go for it and my congregation may not be that keen on singing Ed Sheeran, but I wish that we could regularly view our walk with Christ as an adventure. I wish we would see our mission of the Gospel like the quest of the dwarfs and hobbits to reclaim the Lonely Mountain from the dragon. I wish that as followers of Christ we would see the reality of the exciting life in Him. I wish we would see fire for that is how the Christian life is meant to be lived.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It was not merely for entertainment that Bunyan expressed a walk with Christ as a pilgrim\u2019s journey, nor was it for Tolkien who illustrated the Christian life with a quest through Middle Earth, neither was<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":20334,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1551],"tags":[3567,2006,1706,2449],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n