“Saddle up your horses we’ve got a trail to blaze
Through the wild blue yonder of God’s amazing grace
Let’s follow our leader into the glorious unknown
This is a life like no other, this is The Great Adventure
Yeah… oh saddle up your horses… come on get ready to ride.”
Lyrics to “The Great Adventure” by Stephen Curtis Chapman
Along with all of the other boys in my seventh grade Bible class, I was told to kneel down and watch “The Great Adventure” music video, at least once a week, because it would help to make me a “man of integrity.” Each week I would watch Stephen Curtis Chapman riding his horse and building his house out in the fields and I would wonder, “Am I missing something?” I do not think that we were ever given the definition of integrity; we were told that it was something we needed in order to be a man of God.
Throughout my life, I have acquired many rules and attributes that I must follow or have so that I will be a “good Christian man.” I prayed in a specific order, didn’t say certain words and most importantly read my Bible daily. I would do these things passionately, hoping that God would contact me because of my obedience to “His rules.”
It was not until many years later that I began to question the things that I had willingly accepted into my identity as a Christian and as a man. My entire life had seemed so normal to me, therefore, it was hard to find any pieces that may have been distortions or abnormalities. My real growth in this area began when I met people who were different than me. They had different faiths, beliefs, and upbringings. This forced me to reflect on my own faith and to really ask myself and God if what I knew was truth, or was I missing something?
I have been forced to knock down a lot of the foundations of my faith and start from scratch. I have a desperation for the truth of my relationship with God. Is the God I know just a Western representation of society? Why do I seek God? Do I want to know God because of fear, or is there a real desire? The results of these questions have been tears, joy, freedom, and struggle, not clear answers. I have been able to reflect on my past, question things that I have taken on as burdens, and seek God as counsel through it all.
Faith becomes more than Christianity or religion when it buries itself deep inside of us. It attaches to our past, present, and future and causes questions. My relationship with God is movement and change, not a stagnant rulebook that brings fear, desperation, and conformity.
I still do not know what integrity means. I am aware that it is more an issue of character than music videos and kneeling.
