Go Beyond

I love adventure. It really doesn’t matter to me whether the adventure is big or small. I have learned to embrace and enjoy even the briefest adventure — like a bike ride along the bayou trails near my home. If we lead ourselves to believe that only big and costly adventures are adventures, then we will miss out on a lot of really cool stuff.

When it comes to my adventure metrics, everything counts — not just the epic-sized stuff. To think otherwise would be like saying that the only meals that can nourish me are the ones I eat at a fancy restaurant. While I love eating at a great steak house, I can’t afford to eat at a place like that every day. So, I eat at a lot of places where you have to look up to see the menu.

This past Friday and Saturday I had the opportunity to enjoy a couple of fun — and affordable — adventures. On Friday, I packed up my fishing gear and made my way to Cat Spring to join my old friend Steve Peace for a day of fellowship and fishing. Some mutual friends were very kind to give us access to their 300-acre spread complete with a multi-acre pond.

Fishing a pond on private land is like catching fish out of a bucket — only better. The aim of an adventure like this was to do more than fish. It was to wet a line with an old friend and to get caught up on life. There is no better place to have a conversation than around a campfire or next to someone holding a fishing pole. And converse we did. Hours of conversation while we caught and released too many fish to count.

Of course, we had to take a break for lunch so we hopped in my pickup and drove to nearby New Ulm for a big tasty burger at Texas Star Cafe. More conversation. And then, back to the pond. Conversation. Catch. Release. And repeat. There is no better way for me to clear my head and hit the reset button than to get outdoors. Loved this adventure.

On Saturday, after a morning of leading one of our small groups to serve our partners at Manna House in Brookshire, I set off on another great adventure. I put on my biking toggs, tossed my mountain bike in the back of my pickup, and drove off to meet some of the guys in my Band of Fathers men’s group.

The guys and I do a lot of mountain biking adventures. Absolutely love riding with these guys. What made our adventure even more enjoyable was deciding to get off the familiar trails at George Bush Park and ride through the woods — making our own trail. Whoa! This was intensely fun and more than a bit challenging.

Sharing our off-trail adventure made it even more enjoyable. We rode. We laughed. We stopped to get our bearings. We dodged tree limbs on the ground and on the trees. And when we finally emerged from the woods, we all agreed that we had just shared one of the best riding experiences we have had. The only thing it cost us was a few scratches here and there. Well worth it.

As you think about your next adventure, remember that it doesn’t have to cost a lot of money to be an adventure. There is an entire menu of affordable adventures waiting to be enjoyed. Take your pick. Order up something fun, something hard, something old or something new. Fit something cool into whatever time you have available. God gave us a heart for adventure. So, go have an adventure!