Adventure Manifesto

From the earliest days of the existence, when God gave Adam the Dominion Mandate, man has loved adventure. From climbing of Mount Everest, to propelling boats down the wild currents of the Amazon, to crawling through tunnels in England. From discovering Mauchu Pichu, to finding the body of King Tut, to the discovery of the Antacatheric Wreck, to a boy finding a Roman coin in his own backyard. Explorers have ranged from the men that seemed destined for it from birth, such men as Ferdinand Magellan, who became a sailor at a young age, to the less renown Francisco de Pizzaro, a man who seemed as if he would live his entire life in the occupation of an illiterate swine herd, until he was Providently called by God to the new world.

God has called men to adventure, and to dominion, “O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens. Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger. When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet: All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field; The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas. O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!” Psalm 8.

That is the purpose of man! To take dominion, to subdue the earth, to bring all things in subjection under his feet. That is what man was made for, to glorify God and enjoy him forever. To take dominion over the works of the Lord. You were not made to sit on a church pew, sing a few songs, hear another irrelevant sermon, and then go home, go to your bed, rise in the morning, go off to a corporate job, come home, and play video games! God did not make you for your fun, he made you for his own glory! God made man to worship him, and to cause others to worship him, and to take creation, and use it for the glory of God. Man craves this, man wishes for it, for the challenges, for the pain, for the adventure of dominion. That is why boys play video games, because they wish to have hardship, to fight wars, and to conquer kingdoms, but they have no outlet for it, so they go off, and conquer a fantasy world, and go off to kill fake enemies, never realizing that right outside their door is a culture that needs to be conquered for Christ.

Boys who grow up without taking dominion are boys that grow up like walking dead men. They are alive, yet they do not live fully, they do not live for what God has made them for, they live for their own glory and their own pleasure, rather than for God’s. A life without a purpose is like climbing a mountain without a summit. Danger without success. This should terrify you if you are a young man, (or woman), to think that you –you- are living your life without doing what God has called you to do. This is not an oppressive life, this is life at its fullest. This is climbing mountains in exploration, this is spreading the gospel to the far stretches of the earth. This is space exploration for the purpose of dominion, this is deep sea diving for the purpose of dominion, this is hanging on rock walls. Reading ancient codes, so that we may better understand how this nation fits into God’s Word, and his overall plan of history.

As a finale word, as you climb mountains, swim rivers, and hunt wild animals, we must remember that we do not do it for the thrill, if we did things for a thrill we would speedily doing anything and everything that gave us an adrenalin high. We are not thrill seekers, we are kingdom builders. We do not risk our God given necks for a thrill, we risk our lives for eternal glory, knowing God has us in His hand, and we will go in His time. We do not court danger for danger’s sake, we court God’s will, for his sake.

Oh truly, as Kipling said, “Something Lost Behind the Ranges, Go and Find It.”

Through His Strength We Will Conquer,

Andrew C. Abbott