Category: Advent 2024 – Advent Adventure

Advent 2024 – Day 4

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Are you ready for take-off? Today’s “Advent Adventure” lifts us across the mountains and into Tzeltal country.

Let me quote from my letter home that day: “I woke early, ready to fly out at a moment’s notice. Because we were among the last campers to arrive, we were also last on the flight priority list, but when one of the other campers asked for an afternoon slot and I happened to be standing nearby, I offered to take her place. In fifteen minutes, I ran back to the hotel, checked out, saw some rubber boots in a shop across the street, tried them on, paid, and then ran back to the plane’s hangar!

“Then, I waited an hour. I used the extra time to catch my breath. It also gave me time to shove my regular shoes into my duffle bag and tie on my new boots. At last, the 6-seater plane soared into the sky. I was glad for the boots! Upon arrival, I found it had rained for hours the previous night, and mud was everywhere!”

Can you imagine Jesus’ first experience with dirt and mud? Think of the odors in a stable. I’m certain none of that was found on Heaven’s streets of gold! Later, he experienced the filth of a sinful world. He saw the pride and selfishness and greed of people around him. These were the people he came to save?! And he had no rubber boots or hazmat suit to protect him from this kind of contamination!

As you get ready for another day, take a moment and consider what behavior in your life saddens Jesus. Is there mud on your conscience? What would you like to confess? Why not take a moment to ask God to forgive you? Then read Isaiah 1:18.

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Advent 2024 – Day 3

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Welcome back! We are on an “Advent Adventure” traveling into the rainforests of Mexico.

Upon arriving in the town of Las Casas, there were a lot of “lasts” before I flew into our campsite in la selva: writing a last note to my parents, enjoying a final hot shower, flushing a toilet, and sipping one more glass of ice-cold Coke.

Plenty of “firsts” lay ahead: learning to butcher a cow, soldering a pipe joint, making a wooden stool, and giving injections in first aid class, to name a few.

Before Jesus left Heaven, did he feel the same way? Did he take one final look around at all the glory of God’s throne? Did he say goodbye to Michael and Gabriel and other angels? Did he take one last bite of manna before he left to enter the darkness of Mary’s womb?

He too faced lots of firsts: the first time he saw Mary’s face, the first time he tasted challah bread or gefilte fish, the first time he hammered a nail in Joseph’s shop.

St. Paul understood transitions. In Phil. 3, he left behind all his past status symbols and then wrote, “I once thought these things were valuable, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done. Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ.”

Any time we travel to a foreign place, there are things we leave behind and new “firsts” to experience. What is one thing you have “left behind” and what is one new experience you found in Christ?

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Advent 2024 – Day 2

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Glad you have chosen to join me for this “Advent Adventure – 2024.” We’re focusing on a journey I took over 50 years ago to the jungles of Mexico and seeing what lessons we can learn to prepare us for our own travels with Christ.

When I arrived in Mexico in September of 1970, I already spoke a good deal of Spanish. Attending the devotional time for the employees who worked at our compound, I found I could understand about 90-95% of what was said in Spanish. When I walked to a local mercado, my ability to use the language allowed me to bargain for better prices on last-minute purchases.

However, once we left the city, drove along the Pan American highway, and flew into the jungle, Spanish would no longer be useful. The natives spoke Tzeltal, a language used long before Cortez and his conquistadores ever arrived. My college education and brilliant personality were useless unless I could learn the basics of the local language. A humbling experience!

When Jesus came to earth to be born in a stable, he couldn’t speak at all. His infant cries alerted Mary to feed him, but he couldn’t communicate all the glories of Heaven. He had to learn to speak Aramaic, just as I needed to learn Tzeltal.

In Phil. 2:6-8, we read, “Though he was God, [Jesus] did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God.”

Before we get to Heaven, we all need to learn humility. Is there some small act of service that you could perform today to serve a friend?

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Advent 2024 – Day 1

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Welcome to “Advent Adventure 2024”! Advent is a special season for drawing closer to God. On each of the 24 days leading up to Christmas, I’ll offer a brief lesson that the Lord taught me as I went through a 5-month jungle training program in Mexico more than half a century ago! And, yes, each thought relates to Christ’s birth.

In the Fall of 1970, after completing a year of grad school, I headed to the jungles of Mexico under the auspices of Wycliffe Bible Translators. My idea of outdoor life was to walk from one building to another. The prospect of living in a rainforest, learning survival techniques, building my own latrine, and acquiring a thousand other new skills did not excite me. Still, I felt a profound sense of purpose. This was where God was leading me. He would see me through.

Ex. 23:20 offered encouragement. “I am sending an angel before you to protect you on your journey and lead you safely to the place I have prepared for you.” Little did I realize how busy that angel would be over the next months!

Other campers and I drove from Mexico City south to the Yucatan peninsula. Duffle bags, pistol belts, canteens, and other equipment weighed our car down to the point that the muffler was only 3” above the pavement. When we came to bumps and washed-out sections in the road, an angel must have lifted the car over them. At night, he pushed burros, cows and goats out of the way of our headlights. Stopping at a hotel, we prayed that the same angel would sit on top of the car so no one would walk off with our things: A car door that had never locked before stayed shut that night. Over and over, the Lord protected us on our way.

Jesus began a journey at Christmas, from heaven to earth. We know angels watched over him. Each of us is on a journey, in the opposite direction, and Advent offers an opportunity to prepare us for our ultimate destination, Heaven. The angel that guided God’s people in the wilderness is still in the business of guiding and protecting us.

Join me again tomorrow to see what God wants to teach us along our route.

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