“This is a very great adventure, and no danger seems to me so great as that of knowing when I get back to Narnia that I left a mystery behind me through fear.”

Reepicheep – The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S Lewis

What do you do when you wake up to a dragon blocking the path to your ship?

Do you sit through the night at the enchanted table to wait for what morning will reveal, or do you retreat to safety?

How long do you press on in uncharted waters with no sight of land?

According to the noble mouse Reepicheep, the only thing to be done is embrace the adventure at hand and follow where it leads.

Reepicheep understood that the best discoveries often require us to face discomfort, hardship, and risk.

Reepicheep never (voluntarily) turned tail from an adventure. Armed with the simple confidence that his heart’s desire lay secure in Aslan’s country and that right would ultimately be victorious, he approached every challenge as an opportunity rather than a threat.

He and the other voyagers were richly rewarded for their courage, through the growth they experienced, the opportunities they received to act in faith, and the wonders that defied their worst expectations.

Storytelling is an adventure, if we choose to accept it.

It can be tempting to try to fight other people’s dragons that don’t personally threaten us; to skirt around the dark islands of hidden fears; to bypass the long nights of uncertainty in favor of an easy answer. But pursuing mystery opens the doorway to discovery.

Maybe for you it’s a point of tension between your theology and your experience of reality. Maybe a conviction that comes with a cost you’re not sure is worth it.

Hard questions are scary because we never know where they’ll take us. But we can lean into them in the confidence that the truth stands secure no matter what we ask of it.

Facing our questions isn’t easy—adventures usually aren’t. But when the morning comes, we may find that the dragon is a friend, the sun is rising on Ramandu’s table, and the expanse stretching before us is sweet.