HEARTLIGHT® Magazine: Just for Men: Seeking the Ultimate Adventure

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“Seeking the Ultimate Adventure”
by Phil Ware & Randy Becton

As men, we are seekers and achievers. We're wired that way and culture gives us a heavy dose of electricity to charge that wiring! We want to climb mountains. We want to conquer kingdoms. We want to win victories. We want to make a difference with our lives. We're seekers and achievers.

There are three men we want to use to help us as men target our seeking and achieving ambitions, so they may be used for our benefit, for the benefit of others, and to bring God glory.

The first, Jack Grimm, was a flamboyant West Texas wildcatter who found his share of oil in Texas and Oklahoma. He spent many of his 72 years searching for other treasures at his own great expense. His life was an exciting adventure with almost no boundaries. He searched for Noah's Ark in Turkey. He searched for the Titanic in the North Atlantic. To many, Jack was a perpetual seeker, even though he never fully found those things that he was seeking. But in the process of seeking, he experienced incredible adventures.

Randal Cunningham came out of UNLV as one of the greatest passing quarterbacks in NCAA history. His pro career looked promising. During his first six seasons with the Philadelphia Eagles he earned many honors and accolades for his great escapability and ability to improvise. He led the Eagles to many great victories. In the process, he was also recognized as one of the good guys of the game, being recognized with Player of the Year honors twice.

In 1991, Randal's career began to be plagued by injuries and bad coaches. There was a time he clearly chose his family when they suffered a crisis over his career. This didn't sit well with his coaches. He began to lose his confidence and became the scapegoat for the team's poor performances in 1994-95. He looked washed up when he spent 1996 out of the game, with most experts thinking he was done for good in the NFL.

Almost miraculously after taking that year off, the Vikings picked him up as their back up quarterback. He learned the system with the Vikings. But even before coming to Minnesota, he had solidified his faith in God and found an inner peace that had been missing during his tortuous last years in Philadelphia. Now in 1998, he has stepped in for the injured Vikings starter Brad Johnson and helped guide the Vikings to an undefeated record nearly half way through the 1998 season. Whether or not he gets that long desired Super Bowl ring this year, Randal has proved that he is a man of quality, grace, determination, and leadership. He credits that character to seeking God first in his life and honoring his family above his career.

Many of us are perpetual seekers? We always seem to be searching for something?

Will be like Jack Grimm and end up with great adventures, only to find that what we most seek eludes us, remaining just outside our grasp? Most of us as men would settle for that in our younger years. But as we grow older, we want to make a difference. We want to leave our mark in a positive, redemptive way.

Will we be like Randal Cunningham and realize that what we seek is not found until we seek after something greater than our own dreams? Great adventures are wonderful and great accomplishments feel good in their day, but will we find that character that helps us leave a mark for good and God like Randal has tried to do?

The Bible promises in the Hebrews 11 that "Without faith it is impossible to please God, for whoever comes to God must believe that he exists and rewards those who diligently seek after him." Can we believe that? Can we really believe that?

Our third man helps us see that we can trust that promise. His name is Abraham. He is called The Father of the Faithful. Why? Because he obeyed God's call to leave his home for a land which he was to receive as an inheritance. When he left, he had achieved much. He was successful in business. He was respected by his friends and relatives. He was a good man who had good values. But he left all that, answering God's call to search for something greater. The Bible says, "He went away without knowing where he was to go. The Bible says he was looking forward to a city with firm foundations whose builder and maker was God." He was a seeker. But he was not satisfied with finding the temporary and the trivial. He was seeking a home with God. The Bible goes on and tells us that "God is not ashamed to be called his God" and that God "has prepared a city" for him and those like him who are willing to seek after God and his Kingdom.

While we can't promise you the kind of adventures that Jack Grimm has experienced, or the middle age success of Randal Cunningham, we can assure you that if we seek God and his Kingdom, if we choose to be a Kingdom man, God's man, our seeking will bring us to what we yearn for most, a home with God. It will also help us better know how take our family with us. It won't be easy and it won't be without cost and it won't be without hardships, but it is one search that ends in victory and a crown. I don't know about you, but to me, that's something worth seeking!

For a glimpse of Jack Grimm's adventures check out his search for the Titanic and a final look at a West Texas adventurer.

For a summary of Randal Cunningham's career, see The Underground Viking Fan site player bios.

The material on Abraham comes from Hebrews 11:1-2, 6, 8-19.

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