Erwin Raphael McManus - Chasing Daylight: Seize the Power of Every Moment

ERWIN RAPHAEL McMANUS

Copyright 2002 by Erwin Raphael McManus

All rights reserved. Written permission must be secured from the publisher to use or reproduce any part of this book, except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles.

Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson, Inc.

Published in association with Yates & Yates, LLP, Literary Agents, Orange, California.

The Perils of Ayden. Used by permission of Erwin Raphael McManus. Copyright 2002. All rights reserved.

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from the HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTER-NATIONAL VERSION. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations noted NKJV are from THE NEW KING JAMES VERSION. Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations noted NASB are from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE, Copyright The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995. Used by permission.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

McManus, Erwin Raphael.
Chasing Daylight : dare to live a life of adventure / Erwin Raphael McManus.
p. cm.
ISBN-10: 0-7852-2778-4 (SE)
ISBN-13: 978-0-7852-2778-6 (SE)
ISBN 0-7852-8113-4
1. Christian life. I. Title.
BV4501.3 .M375 2002
248.4dc21

2002010353

Printed in the United States of America

07 08 09 10 11 RRD 6 5 4 3 2 1

TO KIM

In a moment two become one.
Two lives become one heart.
Two roads become one path.
Two journeys become one adventure.
With you, one moment has become a lifetime.

Join Erwin McManus

for a 10-week DVD Group Bible Study

on the life of Jonathan.

Chasing Daylight:
a 4-DVD Series
for Small Groups

The Chasing Daylight book is a great read for all individuals interested in seizing the divine moments in their lives.

Combine the bonk with video leaching from Erwin McManus. real-life stories, dramatic pieces, and a Bible based Leader's Guide, and this series becomes a powerful small group resource.

The series includes:

4 DVDs
Chapter- by-chapter insights from Erwin McManus
10 Bible study lessons on the life of Jonathan
10 workbooks for participants
A Leader's Guide
A special message from Erwin for the group leader
A complimentary copy of the Chasing Daylight book

Order online today.

CONTENTS

SOME MOMENTS ARE SO BIG YOU CANNOT SEIZE THEM by yourself. This book certainly qualifies. So many people stepped through this moment with me and stayed the course until the mission was complete. This project has merged several teams together. I would like to thank Thomas Nelson Publishers for believing in my message and bringing me on board. Thank you, Mike Hyatt, Brian Hampton, Laurie Dashper, and everyone else at Nelson who has served us so graciously. Thank you also to my friend and agent, Sealy Yates. I dont know where you find the energy, but your passion has certainly fueled the success of this project. Every day in Los Angeles I bask in a pool of creativity known as Mosaic. Without this unique community my dreams would remain thoughts and not realities. I am forever indebted to the elders, leadership team, staff, and congregation of this wonderful community of faith and imagination. Especially I would like to thank from Mosaic Dave Auda, who inspired me to write on this topic; Holly Rapp, who moves me from storyteller to author; and Noemi Martinez Bary, who lifted words into images. While I dedicate this book to my life partner, Kim, there is no part of my life that is left untouched by my children, Aaron, Mariah, and our daughter in the Lord, Paty. In many ways they live the book with me.

Finally, words cannot do justice to the level of gratitude I feel toward the God who created us. What a gift He has given us. He created us to live, not simply to believe. To follow Him is to experience, to explore, to discover. Thank You, Lord Jesus, not only for who You are, but for whom You created us to become. So now let us not waste even one moment. Lets face forward and pursue the prize set before us. New eyes will be needed to see this path, but once begun, we will know the exhilaration of seizing our divine moments.

Unleashing the Spirit of Creativity,
Erwin Raphael McManus

As long as it is day, we must do the work of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.

Jesus
John 9:45

Rumblings are more felt than heard and certainly never seen.
They come to you through the soles of your feet into the depth of your soul.

Only then do they open the eyes of your heart. extThey speak of a shift that is about to take place.

Kembr
The Perils of Ayden

Ayden felt still the tyro when Maven gave him his first choice. Shouldnt first he practice on decisions of little weight?

Why would someone as wise as the Maven entrust him with so great a gift?

Was it really true that the riches of all men and kingdoms rested in him? That the good of all stood hanging in the balance?

And how could all of time be bound to one moment?

Even so he could not decline this invitation. This choice was not his to make. His birthright brought both privilege and responsibility.

The journey chose him, but the adventure was his to choose.

To choose is to know the pleasure of freedom, or is it the freedom of pleasure?

Entry 203
The Perils of Ayden

1
CHOICES

DEEP INTO THE NIGHT I WAS WALKING DOWN A DARK street in the city of San Salvador under the care of a night watch-man who was returning me to my home. No more than six or seven years old, I somehow slipped through the fortress-like security of my grandparents home and found my way into the dangerous street outside. Later, Papi Hermelindo and Mami Finita even attempted to wait up with a camera to document my escape. Interrogating me was of no value since I had no recollection of the event. I was a sleepwalker going places in my dreams where my body insisted on following. All I would ever remember was dreaming that I could fly, that I was going places that I had never seen but somehow knew awaited my exploration. Waking up always carried with it at least some small disappointment. Such a great divide between dreams and realitybetween dreams and life. How in the world is the real thing supposed to compete with what you can conjure in your imagination? Not that life was bad, but it wasnt a dream.

But it didnt stop there. It wasnt just that the dreams made sleeping more attractive than living. The dreams invaded my waking hours as well. It wasnt enough to be a sleepwalker; I was also a daydreamer. I was a citizen, if not a captive, of my imagination. The places I could go, the things I could do, the person I could become were far more compelling than the life I was living. Yet even when I was playing it safe, there was an adventurer screaming to be set free.

As I grew, I used books to feed my dreams. I would feed my longing to join a quest through the journeys of endless heroes. Whether it was an ancient odyssey or a futuristic enterprise, I would find adventure through their experiences. But this would only intensify my craving rather than quench it.