Are You Ready For An Adventure?

The phone rang.  A familiar voice on the other end said, "Are you ready for an adventure?"

Mike Phelan, the Director of Marriage & Respect Life for the Diocese of Phoenix at the time, had called to offer me the position of Coordinator at the JPII Center.  His choice of words, however, reinforced the fact that it was not a mere job offer, but an invitation to a shared mission.  A co-mission-ing, if you will.

Only a month before, an unexpected layoff rocked my world.  It was my first job out of grad school — an exciting ministry position that leveraged my personal journey of faith and extensive formation in the seminary as well as other respected Catholic institutions.  I was just getting started, and less than two years in... poof.

Why would God allow this?  How will I provide for my family?  Will I have to settle for a job I'm not passionate about?  How will my gifts and years of training be utilized?  What did I do wrong?

Even in our deepest, rawest questions — even in the most unsettling situations — God speaks and provides as a loving Father... if we freely allow Him to as His beloved sons and daughters.

The following words from the prophet Jeremiah have ministered to me time and time again ever since a friend bestowed them to me in a card for my high school graduation:

"For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.  Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you.  You will seek me and find me; when you seek me with all your heart, I will be found by you, says the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, says the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile."—Jer 29:11-14

My initial call to serve as head of the JPII Center was exactly what it needed to be: an invitation to faithfully continue along this adventure with the Lord called... LIFE.  Inherently risky, adventures require both arduous effort and even more arduous faith in something (and someone) greater.  Lived with the eyes and heart of faith, adventures will always be fulfilling (or fill-full-ing), because the ultimate destination is actually the person walking alongside you (cf. The Road to Emmaus, Lk 24:13-35).

Whoever and wherever you are, my invitation is this:  With God, no phones are necessary. Authentic personal relationship with Him, which we call prayer, is our direct line, and He's waiting on the other end to say time and time again: "Are you ready for an adventure?"