Why am I excited about this?

Reading Wild at Heart this week, I was particularly struck by some parts of the chapter on how God breaks us down to help reveal His plan for us - and to help show us our true strength and our true nature. But, what I took from the discourse, was that God not only breaks down our persona - showing us our weaknesses, teaching us to acknowledge the wounds we've suffered - but he also breaks down our understanding of the world. All the rules we've learned from the world don't apply!

From the day we are born into the Earth, we begin learning the rules of this world - we learn that our parents feed us and teach us, that the stove is hot, that gravity pulls things to the ground (sometimes with smashing results!). We learn to interact with others. At our best, we learn cooperation, teamwork, loyalty, and friendship. At our worst, we learn jealousy, bullying, selfishness, and greed. We grow and evolve. At our best, we learn independence, determination, self-mastery, and courage. At our worst, we learn self-doubt, inadequacy, impatience, and cowardice. But - good and bad - we learn a lot about this world and how to carve out a niche for ourselves in its vastness.

But what am I excited about tonight? That God takes, has taken, and will take all those rules, all those things I've learned, all the fables I've told myself are true - and will shatter them. He will say, "Whoever wants to save his life will lose it." He will say, "Whoever exalts himself will be humbled." He will say, "The last shall be first." He will take everything the accuser and the world have taught me and reveal the falsehoods.

When I was reading this week, I had an unusual but undeniable, deep-seated gut reaction as I read this sentence:

The true test of a man, the beginning of his redemption, actually starts when he can no longer rely on what he's used all his life.

What was my reaction? Strangely, I felt... excited. I've figured out a few things I'm good at and more than a few that I'm not. But, all those things that are working for me, one day - sure as the sun comes up - they will fail me. And I'll have to dig deeper, to work smarter, to pray and meditate more effectively, to turn myself inward to figure out how to approach and overcome this challenge.

And that has me nothing less than excited.

My Father is going to take the world and turn it upside down. My Father is going to break all the rules. My Father has an adventure set for me. And not just an adventure. But an adventure that's worth the fighting for. A challenge with a purpose. A battle worth winning. An endeavor that matters.

This realization makes me excited and grateful and humbled. As Andrew quoted Braveheart in an earlier post, "Every man dies. Not every man lives." My Father has given me a real life. And He expects me to live it. And He will make sure the adventure is worth the having.

That's exciting.