{adventurously.expectant}

romans 8 has been all up in my face this past week and some change.  well really the last 6 months, but last week it reappeared at my bible study, then yesterday through a friend's tweet.  last night i jumped into the text and then again this morning and what do you know... a pastor that i follow on twitter felt like he needed to write a blog post on romans 8 today as well {insert sarcasm} 


i've been trying to write out what's going on in my head and heart for quite some time and just can't quite put it into words and that's one thing that is so very frustrating to me. i've had this draft saved for quite a while and when i opened it tonight i was pleasantly surprised to find this...


::this resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It's adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike "What's next, Papa?" God's Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what's coming to us—an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we're certainly going to go through the good times with him!::  romans 8:15-17 {the message}

for the last 6 months it's the perspective i've been trying to cultivate and the way i've been trying to live.  to walk out that "adventurously expectant" mindset every day that i have the chance to wake up.  trying to walk this way during this season of life, this season of waiting,  has been SO awesome as i've jumped in with both feet into new experiences, but SO challenging right along side that when the deepest desire of my heart still seemingly goes unmet.


these past few years of my life have been a season of waiting and at times a season of extreme wrestling with life where i feel like i'm holding my breath for the next shoe to drop, but then i catch myself about to pass out and throw up (metaphorically of course) because that shoe never falls.  i'm still holding my breath, feeling like i might suffocate by the heartache of another rejection ... and i might've tweeted the other night that i wanted to punch this waiting in the face.  i'm not a violent person really, but that's exactly what i felt.  thankfully a wise mentor of mine stated to me this week that "this life following Christ is a constant waiting"  truer words have never been spoken, but man somedays that's tough.  must've been what the writer of romans was referring too when he said "we'll go through the hard times with him..." 

as i run full speed ahead into the age of 28 this week, my prayer is that i will continue to  seek to embrace every moment i have and live it adventurously expectant while pressing into God like romans 8 says " with a childlike "what's next, papa?"
i will also be clinging to this quote that a wonderful, loving friend that i have been blessed with over the past few years, passed onto me this last week...

"listen to your life. see it for the fathomless mystery that it is. in the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace." :: Frederick Buechner

{aw}