Discovery Ministries celebrates the end of the summer season each year with a staff party.  One year, we went to a local quarry-turned-swimming resort, complete with imported white sandy beaches, fabricated cliff jumping platforms, and blue water dyed to give the impression of the tropics.  Before I even had a chance to set up my lawn chair, crack open a soda, and enjoy this simulated swimming lagoon, my oldest daughter, Emma, sustained an injury.  Jumping into the heavily dyed water, she could not see the sharp rocks hidden just a few feet below the surface, resulting in a deep, nasty, three-inch gash on her right knee.  It was bad.  She clearly needed stitches.  Frustrated with the resort and all their rock-obscuring blue dye and the fact that I would miss the party, I helped Emma hobble to the car and escorted her to the emergency room. 
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The ER is an interesting, paradoxical place.  You go there because you think you’re dying, but once you’re there, you sit and wait until you’re bored to death.  Maybe this is the hospital’s way of weeding out the extreme cases.  Those who are faking it eventually give up and leave.  

Sitting in the ER waiting room this day, I notice that there isn’t much action.  I see a lot of people sitting quietly, staring straight ahead, some with pained expressions on their faces, all of us just waiting.  I was expecting something different.  On TV they make ER’s seem as thrilling as a war zone.  After all, it isn’t called a “Trivial Room” or a “Negligible Room,” but an “Emergency Room.”  Where was the gunshot victim?  Where was the guy having a heart attack with a paramedic straddling him, feverishly performing CPR while EMT’s and nurses frantically roll the gurney down the hall yelling, “STAT!”  Where was the blood, the mayhem, the disorder?  Instead, I observe an overweight gentleman dozing off a few seats away.  An older lady labors with a nagging cough.  I watch a mother try to calm a dirty-faced little boy, whose cheeks shine with tears streaking paths down them as he sobs quietly and holds his arm close to his side.   

My own daughter’s tears have long since dried, and now she is trying, as I am, to make the best of our situation by thumbing through the pages of an out-of-date Better Homes and Gardens.  The hours tick away, but nothing happens.  More hurt, pained, and ailing people quietly file in than file out, and soon the lobby is full.  I find myself yearning for our name to be called so we can get on with this and get back to normal life.  For the first few hours, I even hold out hope that maybe Emma and I can make it back to the beach for a late lunch, but then as the clock ticks, my hope falters.
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I feel myself beginning to go a little crazy by the fifth hour of thumbing through the same Popular Mechanics magazine.  Finally, like a mythic siren, our name is called and we are directed to an examination room.  A doctor scurries in, looks at the charts, and asks what the problem is.  This is an honest question because at this point the laceration on my daughter’s knee has begun to scab over, and due to the stalactites growing from my ears and the crazed look in my eye, I look more like the one in need of medical attention.  

Waiting is no fun.  The Bible talks about waiting quite a bit, like in Psalm 69:3 where the psalmist writes, “I am weary with my crying out; my throat is parched.  My eyes grow dim with waiting for my God.”  Sounds a lot like the ER.  But not all waiting is bad.  Psalm 62:5 states, “For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from Him.”  There are even some really good outcomes from waiting, like in Isaiah 40:31 where it says, “…but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.” 
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It seems like waiting is not only something we have to do in life—it’s ordained by God for our good.  I was considering this when I read the story of David recently.  David, anointed to become king in a covert coronation, gains God’s full endorsement.  Immediately the power of the Holy Spirit comes over him, and he is soon killing giants and pretty much winning at everything.  He’s humble, good looking, chosen by God, a victorious warrior, loved by everyone—except king Saul.  And this is where the plot in David’s story takes a turn for the worse.  He finds himself on the run, hiding out—an outlaw with no prospects, blocked from his calling with no clear path to the throne.  God promised him the kingdom, but for years due to no apparent fault of his own, David would have to wait.  It’s during this difficult season of his life that we learn how he was able to endure.  

There are a couple times in the narrative that stand out to me as times that David waited when it looked like he could have forced God’s hand and taken control of his destiny.  The first is the time he is hiding in the cave, and Saul enters to relieve himself.  It looks like God is delivering David’s enemy directly into his hands.  Talk about being caught with your pants down!  There’s Saul, ripe for the picking.  The men with David are so convinced that they claim it’s God’s will that they strike Saul down.  But David hesitates and refuses to kill the one he honors as the Lord’s anointed.  Instead, he cuts off part of Saul’s robe and uses it for collateral against sparing his own life.  Saul is humiliated and returns home. 
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Saul doesn’t relinquish his zeal for long, though, and soon he is hunting David again, tracking him to the last corner of the desert.  Every day Saul gets closer to catching David, so what does David do?  He waits until Saul and his men have bedded down for the night and then tiptoes his way into the center of their camp where Saul is snoozing. 

One of David’s mighty men has accompanied him and is thinking the plan involves assassination, but to his surprise, David grasps Saul’s spear and water jug and doesn’t kill Saul but calls to him once he is a safe distance away.  Seeing David holding up the jug and the spear from the adjacent hilltop, Saul is again convicted of his deadly envy and gives up the chase, forced to swallow the pill that David holds in his hand what Saul has placed his faith in—the jug of provision and spear of protection.  David on the other hand, has placed his faith in God’s provision and protection.  

I marvel at David’s ability to wait for God’s timing and wonder how he was able to maintain his conviction and a willingness to delay when the plan of God seemed to be handed to him on a platter.  Why didn’t David take matters into his own hands?  Why didn’t he seize the advantage—take the initiative?  I think it goes back to two vital foundations:  David believed that God is who He says He is, and David believed that he was who God said he was. 
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As ones who have chosen the Almighty God as Lord, we must accept those beliefs, also.  If God is truly God, then He has the power and authority to make His plans succeed.  If God tells us who we are, then there’s no more argument.  The problem is not with God, His plan, or our identities.  The problem we face is in the waiting.  The courage it took for David to trust and wait, is the same courage and trust available for us through the power of the Holy Spirit.  The Apostle Paul has a good word for us when he states, “For I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard until that day what has been entrusted to me” (2 Tim. 1:12). 

Today, as you endure the waiting game of life, wonder what God’s plans are for you, and wrestle with whether you’re worth it or not, place your trust in God, be kind to yourself as He is, and know that He has big plans for you.  

“Wait for the LORD; be strong, 
and let your heart take courage; wait for the LORD!” 
Psalm 27:14

​Spiritual warfare hits in surprising ways.  For us this season, it’s been with water...water so common, so powerful, so precious.  For the folks who live in a hurricane alley, they understand the brutal, devastating power behind this force of nature.  Conversely, water rights to those living in the southwestern United States are more valuable than oil.  It is as old as time, too much of it will kill you and a person can only survive about three days without it—water.  So, when Discovery Ministries had its third consecutive water main break in the span of two months, I realized it was more than just bad luck.  It was battle.  

Satan comes to kill, steal, and destroy, and from what I was experiencing, we could add dehydrate to the list.  We discovered the first leak near an RV campsite with water simply bubbling up and slowly pooling like a small artesian well.  The source of the leak lay in a water main deep beneath the earth’s surface.  We would have to dig through the rocky soil, expose the pipe, and make the repairs.  No, it was not an emergency, but really inconvenient.  

Just a couple weeks later, a group staying in the lodge reported silt in the water supply—definitely a problem requiring immediate action.  After a cursory check on filters, we determined the cause—another break in a water main.  This time, the stakes were higher because we were hosting camp guests and would have to relocate them until we could fix the water line, a repair that I knew would be costly.  In desperation, I called a plumber and left a message on his phone to come quickly.  Weighing the options, I knelt in prayer over the loss of clean drinking water.  That’s when I heard God say, “I’ve got this!”  It felt difficult to let it go, but by the end of the day I didn’t really have any other options.  

The next day I woke early and headed for the camp, prepared to work hard until I’d solved the problem.  To my surprise, there, already in the parking area, was an excavator idling behind a truck and trailer. 
I approached the driver. “Hey, what’s going on?”  I asked. 
“The plumber asked me to meet him here early, so here I am.  Where’s the broken water main?” 
Two significant things you need to know about this area make this occurrence a marvel.  First, around here in this rural county of backwoods Missouri nothing ever happens quickly.  Secondly, even if cell phones are getting a signal in these hills, which is only about half the time, communicating one’s problem and need to the tradesman is often challenging, at best.  As I directed the worker to the site, I realized God had fulfilled His words, “I’ve got this.” It truly felt like a miracle.  The workmen were on the job, and soon pure, clear water was flowing for all to enjoy.

​Just a few weeks later, as a crew graded our washed-out camp road after an overabundance of rainfall, they unexpectedly hit a water main.  This time it severed the life source to our administration building, its second story apartments, and the staff house.  This time, our whole staff felt the loss.  

​We soon received the bad news when the plumber examined the damage.  The very old, severed water pipes were rusty and irreparable, so this would be no simple fix.  We would have to dig and re-run hundreds of feet of water lines, costing the camp thousands of dollars that we didn’t have.  Again, we hit our knees, and the Lord said, “Trust me.”  That same day a friend of the ministry randomly wired money to our bank account.  You are probably already ahead of me.  It was a sum that nearly totaled the cost of the waterline repairs.  
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I believe Satan’s battle tactic has been to shut off our water supply, but the faithfulness of Jesus defends and makes it overflow.  That’s a theme present throughout the Bible, especially in Christ’s bold interactions with people.  There was the time in Samaria when Jesus sat next to a well and asked a woman for a drink.  She was appalled that He, a man and a Jew, would ask her for a drink.  Jesus pulled back the curtain on His deity to reveal, “If you knew who I really am you would be asking Me for a drink, and it would be that of Living Water” (John 4:10 my paraphrasing).  

​Later in John’s gospel, we read Jesus’ teaching in the temple of Jerusalem: “On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, ‘If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink’” (John 7:37).  Then in the book of Revelation, John records, “And He said to me, ‘It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment’” (Rev 21:6).  Reading on, Revelation 22 tells us that this living water originated from the very throne of God.  From these passages, we see that the water is living, the water is for everyone who thirsts and the water is free from the very heart of God. 

​If the unquenchable water source is Jesus Himself, then it’s no surprise that Satan would launch a battle against this front, against our getting something so pure, so sweet, so soul quenching as the Living Water of God.  But, like the confused and abused Samaritan woman who wanted to drink but didn’t know how, like the crowds listening to Jesus make his temple proclamation but were so subjected by the harsh, burdensome legalism of the religious leaders that they feared to drink, and like those described in Revelation who were invited to simply come and drink priceless, everlasting water for free, we ask, “How do we drink?”

It occurs to me that I find the way to drink by standing firm against Satan’s tactics.  In his attempts to sabotage our water supply, we hit our knees and went to Jesus.  It was there that Christ quenched our thirst in simple ways, saying, “I’ve got this!” and “Trust in Me.” It was there that He opened our eyes to see His miraculous provisioning.  In fighting for the faith to believe that He would supply our physical need for water, we found the supply of Living Water that had not run dry.  

“…the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”  
​Revelation 7:17 (ESV)

​What do you think of when you hear the word “adventure?”

When I think of adventure, I imagine something that gets my blood flowing, something that opens my eyes to things around me, something that awakens me to things I miss on a regular day and makes my soul feel exhilarated. This picture is the first thing that comes to mind. Yet, if we dig a little deeper into this word’s meaning, we find something very interesting. In the book Adventure and the Way of Jesus, Greg Robinson defines adventure as: “An experience where the outcome is unknown” (Robinson). This definition has challenged my previous view and expanded the concept of “adventure” for me.

I decided to explore the word’s origin and found that it is derived from the Roman middle-class Latin word adventūra, meaning "what will happen."  I find this meaning fascinating because isn’t there so much in our lives that we ask this question about? We stress and we worry.  We overanalyze, and the whole time we ask just one simple question: What will happen?

Our very lives are an adventure, but without the Lord to depend on, life can be full of stress, worry, anxiety, and despair. Stepping into the adventure that God has for us is only truly possible when we give up our sense of control over the outcome and surrender it to the Lord. In order to truly live in this state of adventure, we cannot keep taking the reins out of God’s hands. We must continually live in the mystery of the unknown while still having the knowledge and trust that God has everything in His hands.
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Living our lives in the midst of adventure is not as easy as it sounds. Letting go of our worry and stress is not easy. Giving control to God is challenging! 

Here at DM, it often seems things are constantly going wrong, and it can be easy to get sucked into grasping for control, only to find oneself worried and stressed. The past few weeks here have been extra challenging; all sorts of things have gone wrong:

• Our landline phone was down.
• We had multiple waterline breaks.
• We began to worry over finances.
• We struggled to get enough registrants for our expeditions.

​With these worries weighing down our staff and each of us feeling the stress and burden that accompanies such things, we dragged ourselves into our weekly staff meeting and looked at each other, noticing how tired and bogged down all of us looked and how weary we felt.  We went around and shared the things that were heavy on our hearts, and together we cried out to the Lord through prayer.  Then we opened our songbooks and sang…

“Blessed be Your name
on the road marked with suffering;
though there's pain in the offering
blessed be Your name.
Blessed be the name of the Lord,
blessed be Your glorious name!”

​When we had finished worshipping, we looked around the room with tears spilling down our cheeks.  We had poured out our worries, stress, weariness, and struggles on Jesus. We smiled at each other and felt the Lord’s presence among us, lifting each of our faces with His hand and comforting us. We no longer had to carry the worry that the enemy was using to deceive us into thinking we needed control.  Instead, we threw off the weight of stress and worrying about things we couldn’t control, and we stepped into the adventure that God held before us. We took a leap of trust, and while it didn’t instantly take away all of the things that had gone wrong, it did take away the pressure we were placing on ourselves to control everything. From that moment on, we were able to fully experience and enjoy the unknown, knowing and trusting that God would handle it—maybe not in our way but in His way. That, my friends, is adventure!

In 2 Corinthians 4, Paul says…

​The enemy is working hard to beat us down.  He is placing worry in our laps and making it so easy to want to grab control and steer the ship. In truth, we only have the illusion of control of our lives, but what we can control are our attitudes and our posture. Let us choose an attitude of joy and a posture of praise that we may lift our voices to heaven and rejoice, placing our worries on Him and entering into the adventure of a lifetime! 

Over the few weeks since that meeting, I have seen prayer after prayer answered, some in small ways some in big ways, and for some answers we still wait. Currently, though…

• Our phones are fixed!
• The water main issues are fixed (almost)!
• Donors have surprised us with generous gifts to help pay for the unexpected expense of fixing the waterlines!
• We have had more campers register for our expeditions and increased interest from inquiries! 

​And this piece of scripture has continued to encourage me:

“Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.  For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary,​but what is unseen is eternal.
2 Corinthians 4:16-18​

​Our lives are a mystery, always asking what will happen—an adventure! Each day we get to choose if we will worry and stress about that which we cannot control or if we will lift our eyes to heaven and give all our questions over to Jesus. What would happen if we truly lived each day as an adventure, trusting the Lord with the outcome and giving our worries and cares to Him? How would this change our relationship with God?  I think it is worth trying and finding out.