Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

LIFE ON THE EDGE

Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

Contents

1. Blast Off or Blow Up?.....................................72. The Courtroom of the Mind.................................233. For Love of Money.........................................394. The Powerbrokers..........................................535. Questions from the Edge...................................676. The Keys to Lifelong Love.................................817. Love Must Be Tough........................................1018. Questions from the Edge...................................1179. Getting Along with Your Parents...........................13310. Emotions: Friend or Foe?.................................15711. The Hallway of Doors.....................................17312. Farther down the Hallway.................................18713. Questions from the Edge..................................19514. Choosing a College.......................................20715. When God Doesn't Make Sense..............................21916. Answering the Eternal Questions..........................237Addendum: Thirty-Eight Values to Live By.....................247Notes........................................................255

Chapter One

If you are between sixteen and twenty-six years of age, this book is written specifically for you. Others are welcome to read along with us, of course, but the ideas are aimed directly at those moving through what we will call the "critical decade."

Some of the most dramatic and permanent changes in life usually occur during those ten short years. A person is transformed from a kid who's still living at home and eating at the parents' table to a full-fledged adult who should be earning a living and taking complete charge of his or her life. Most of the decisions that will shape the next fifty years will be made in this era, including the choice of an occupation, perhaps the decision to marry, and the establishment of values and principles by which life will be governed.

What makes this period even more significant is the impact of early mistakes and errors in judgment. They can undermine all that is to follow. A bricklayer knows he must be very careful to get his foundation absolutely straight; any wobble in the bricks at the bottom will create an even greater tilt as the wall goes up. So it is in life.

This momentous journey through the critical decade reminds me of a trip our family took to Kenya and Tanzania years ago. The highlight of our tour was a visit to the Serengeti, a magnificent national park where legendary African animals roam wild and free. It had rained all day before we arrived, and the unpaved roads were extremely muddy. Before we had driven fifteen miles into the park, our car slid into a ditch and bogged down to the axles in thick, African mud. We would have certainly spent the night out there on the savanna if it had not been for a native in a double-wheeled truck who gave us a hand.

Later that afternoon we came to a stretch of road that was even more torn up and muddy. There it divided and ran parallel for several hundred yards before coming back together. It was obvious that drivers earlier that day had forged the new trail to get around a mudhole, but we had no way of knowing on which side it lay. We sat there for a moment trying to decide which road to take. If we made a mistake, we would probably get stuck again and have to sleep in the car-without dinner, toothbrushes, bathroom facilities, or even water to drink.

Our seventeen-year-old son, Ryan, then volunteered to help.

"I'll run ahead and look at the road," he said. "Then I'll wave to let you know which way to go."

The missionary who was with us said, "Uhm, Ryan, I don't think that is a very good idea. You just don't know what might be out there in the tall grass."

Eventually we chose what looked like the best road and were indeed able to get through. But when we reached the place where the two trails came back together, a surprise was waiting for us. A huge male lion was crouched in the grass off to one side. He rolled his big yellow eyes toward us and dared us to take him on. Large cats like that one consider humans to be just another easy dinner. They can cover one hundred yards in less than three seconds and wouldn't hesitate to devour any city dweller who was foolish enough to tempt them.

Ryan looked at the lion and agreed that he probably ought to stay in the car!

BUT WHAT ABOUT THOSE MUDHOLES?

In a manner of speaking, our experience on the Serengeti illustrates the passage from late adolescence to young adulthood. The journey goes smoothly and uneventfully for some individuals. They drive right through without a hitch. But a surprisingly large number of us encounter unexpected "mudholes" that trap and hold us at an immature stage of development. Still others are plagued by predators lurking in the tall grass. Among them are an addiction to alcohol or drugs, marriage to the wrong person, failure to achieve a coveted dream, suicide, homicide, or various criminal offenses. It is very easy to get off the trail and into the ditch in the morning of our lives.

Early mistakes and errors in judgment ... can undermine all that is to follow.

Permit me another illustration that comes to mind. I was once invited to take a three-day whitewater rafting trip down the Rogue River in Oregon. A friend and experienced rafter, Dr. Richard Hosley, said to me as we were preparing to launch the gear, "One thing you'll soon learn is that the river is always boss." I didn't know what he meant then, but three days later I understood that principle very clearly.

Rather than floating on the raft for fifty miles in relative serenity and safety, I chose to paddle along behind in a plastic eight-foot canoe. And on the second afternoon, I insisted on rowing this flimsy craft into the most treacherous part of the river. It was a bad decision.

Ahead lay a section of the river known as the "Coffeepot," so named because the narrowing of the rock-walled banks creates an unpredictable, bubbling current that has been known to suck small boats and their passengers below the surface without warning. Several men and women had drowned in that precise spot, one of them only the summer before. But ignorance is bliss, and blissful I was.

I seemed to be handling the task quite well for the first few minutes ... before everything came unraveled. Then I was caught in the current flowing around a large rock and capsized in the turbulent water. It seemed like an eternity before I came to the surface, only to find breathing impossible. A bandanna that had been around my neck was now plastered across my mouth and held there by my glasses, which were strapped to my head. Just as I clawed free and gasped for air, churning water hit me in the face and gurgled into my lungs. Again, I came up coughing and sputtering before taking another trip below the surface. By then I was desperate for air and keenly aware that the Coffeepot was only a hundred yards downstream.

A kind of panic gripped me that I had not experienced since childhood! I definitely considered the possibility that I was drowning. You see, I have a nagging little habit of breathing every few minutes and don't cope well when prevented from doing so. I knew that getting sucked under again at that moment might be the end of...