Epic Recipe

It's quite simple: If you want to live an epic life, take one serving of your ordinary life, and pour it into God.

"Wow, cheesy much?" is I'm sure what you're thinking. And if you're not, you should be. But would it be any better if I told you "7 Steps to an Epic Life" or handed you a devotional on "40 Days to an Epic Life?" Yet, that seems to be what we desire for our pursuit of God- a list of things to do. Things like, read your Bible daily, pray for xx minutes each day, share your faith with at least xx people each day/week/month/etc, go on a mission trip. Or we offer our insights into Christ in the form of bumper stickers, like "My boss is a Jewish Carpenter." So its cheesy, or its a recipe.

Do you know why epic stories endure, and are, in their very essence, grander than other stories? They are not cheesy, and they break new ground. They dare to go beyond what has come before. Lord of the Rings wasn't just about elves and dwarves, Tolkien created a world and language and culture- he took fantasy seriously. There were no winks to the audience that this wasn't real, it drew you in- it was more like reading a real history than a novel. This was new for the genre, and so is the standard, along with Chronicles of Narnia, for much of modern fantasy. Star Wars was much the same. It took the material seriously, and broke the rules about what sci-fi could be.

Our lives, in order to be epic, must take our source material seriously. We must start by believing that God is capable of really doing what He did in the Bible. Fire really can fall from Heaven, seas really can be parted, donkeys really can talk, a kid can stop a mercenary, a man can heal the sick, the dead will rise (minus the hunger for human flesh that seems to be common amongst the risen dead in most movies these days). Believe what we say about God being bigger than our struggles. Believe that God can free us from the burden of temptation. Believe that God is capable of rescuing us.

Our lives, in order to be epic, must veer off the well trodden path. Robert Frost, in my most favorite poem, talked of taking the road less traveled, saying:

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Moses took a different path, the prophets took a different path, and Jesus took the most different path: A king became a servant, a conqueror became the slaughtered, and because of that, we live. Rather, we have the opportunity to REALLY live. Break the routine of religion, walk freely in the abundance of grace, and breathe the breath of God.

So, the recipe for an Epic Life is that there is no recipe. You live with eyes wide for the glories of God, you look for inspiration in great stories and songs, on shows like Lost and movies like Gladiator, in books that challenge you- whether they be fact or fiction. You long for the beauty of Creation in sunsets and if you are so inclined, sunrises.

To be epic, be naive enough to have faith, and do not give in to cynicism.