Go on an Adventure with God - The Crosswalk Devotional - April 7

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Go on an Adventure with God
By: Whitney Hopler

Bible Reading:
“If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.” – Psalm 139:9-10, NIV

What’s a new adventure you hope to experience this year? Is there a place you’re excited about traveling to visit, a new skill you’d like to learn, or a project or role you want to start at work or at church? 

No matter what kind of adventure it is, you probably feel a mix of both excitement and fear because of all the uncertainty involved. The fear may be causing you to hesitate, but don’t let fear take over. If you’ve prayed for God’s guidance to make the best decisions, and you sense God leading you to go on that adventure, you can move forward with confidence even while still feeling afraid. 

Psalm 139:9-10 describes why you can be confident: God will go with you anytime and anywhere! 

There’s no time of day or night when God won’t be with you. There’s no place you can go where God won’t be with you. As these verses point out, even if you leave as soon as the dawn of a new day or go somewhere far away like overseas, you’ll still be in God’s hands. 

Adventures are vital for your spiritual growth. Any trip or class you want to take, and any professional or volunteer opportunity to serve in new ways, is worth praying about and planning for if God leads you to move forward. Staying in your comfort zone won’t help you grow closer to God, but adventures will! When you step into an adventure, you realize that you can’t do it alone, which motivates you to look for God’s presence and connect with him. 

An adventure stretches your faith so it can become more resilient. If you travel somewhere new, you can see the vastness of the world God created and discover more about how unlimited God’s love and power are. If you take on a new project at work, you can discover talents God tucked away inside you that never would have surfaced if you hadn’t worked on that project. If you serve people in a new way at church, you can experience the blessings of experiencing God’s love flow through your life in fresh ways. 

Whenever you start a new adventure – whenever you “rise on the wings of the dawn” – you can count on God to show up on time to meet you. Wherever “the far side of the sea” is for you, you don’t have to worry about what might happen there, because God will go there with you. An adventure may lead you to a new schedule or take you to a new place on a map, but God doesn’t just give you a schedule and a map and then leave you alone to figure it out. These verses promise that God’s hand will “hold you fast.” God isn’t watching you from a distance. God is walking beside you as your personal guide, no matter when and where you go. 

So, go on an adventure with God sometime soon! If you take a risk and feel like an impostor, don’t worry, because God will hold you fast. If you start a new journey and feel afraid of what might happen along the way, God will hold you fast. You can afford to be brave because you have your loving and powerful Heavenly Father right beside you.

Don’t let the fear of the “far side of the sea” keep you stuck on the shore. The dawn is rising, and God is already there, waiting to guide you on a new adventure that will bless you!

Intersecting Faith & Life:

As you consider why it’s important to go on adventures and to trust God to go with you, reflect on these questions:

• What’s one adventure (like a trip or a project) you’ve been putting off because of fear of what might happen if you moved forward? 
• Looking back at a past challenge, how can you see now that God was holding your hand when you were in the middle of that challenge? 
• In what ways do you find it easier to trust yourself rather than trusting God when your circumstances are comfortable? 
• How does the idea that God will be there for you anytime and anywhere change your perspective on taking risks? 
• What’s one step you can take this week to move toward the next adventure God is calling you to go on? 

Further Reading:
Psalm 32:8
Joshua 1:9
Isaiah 41:10
Matthew 28:20
Proverbs 3:5-6

How did today’s devotional speak to you? Share your thoughts in the Crosswalk Devotional discussion.

Photo Credit: Unsplash/Jared Murray 

Whitney Hopler helps people discover God's wonder and experience awe. She is the author of several books, including the nonfiction books Wake Up to Wonder and Wonder Through the Year: A Daily Devotional for Every Year, and the young adult novel Dream Factory. Whitney has served as an editor at leading media organizations, including Crosswalk.com, The Salvation Army USA’s national publications, and Dotdash.com (where she produced a popular channel on angels and miracles). She currently leads the communications work at George Mason University’s Center for the Advancement of Well-Being. Connect with Whitney on her website at www.whitneyhopler.com and on her Facebook author page.

Check out fantastic resources on Faith, Family, and Fun at Crosswalk.com! 

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