Annual Advent Adventure - Day 2

Annual Advent Adventure - Day 2



Luke 1:26 And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth,

27 To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary.  (KJV)



Isaiah 7:14 Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.  (KJV)





Preparation -



Life is preparation for a journey.  We begin the day we're born, and finish the day we die.  But what are we preparing for?



We spend our infant and toddler years learning the meaning of the word - NO .  We spend our grade school years testing the limits of that word.  Our adolescent years are spent experimenting with what we learned as an infant and in grade school.  Most of the time we find ourselves in mega trouble because what is plain to our parents is not so plain to us.  We spend our time bucking the system instead of working with it.  Our journey is full of skinned knees, cuts, gashes, and bruises as we decide our future, believing we know better than our parents.



Then we grow up.  We are still preparing.  Our journey isn't finished yet.  Somewhere along the way we found out that when you learn the rules of 'Yes' and No', you also realize the consequences of one far outweigh the punishments of the other.  Our journey takes on a new meaning. 



One step forward - Two steps back -



Along our journey from infancy to adulthood we tend to run ahead of our parents.  We are in such a rush to get on with life we can't hear them tell us to stop and listen.  Even when we become the adult we still rush forward with our own ideas failing to listen to another idea or opinion.  We push and shove our way up the corporate ladder without consideration for the other person.  What we fail to realize is that we left the most important person in our life at the foot of the ladder.



When we take the time to pause for a moment, take a breath, look around at our surroundings, we find something missing.  It is only when we look down at the foot of the ladder that we see what we've missed.



There was a reason our parents took us to church and Sunday school.  There was a reason why that moment in Bible Camp was so important.  There was a reason why we agreed with our friend when he or she asked us if we could or would accept Jesus as our personal Savior, and that reason was looking up at us from the bottom of the ladder.



With shame we descend the ladder.  In His gentle eyes is love yet something else we don't want to look at or see.  We don't want to face the conviction that love reveals.  In that moment we realize that we need to let Jesus take the lead along our road.  He will clear the obstacles on our path.  He will fight our battles.  We do not need to do anything alone, ever.  When we allow Jesus to take the leading role in our life, our role becomes one of humility - not shame, but a true humbleness of heart.  We are on our way to becoming the man or woman God created us to be.



Learning - Compel -



Now you have your hand in the hand of the Man who calmed the sea, walked on water, raised the dead, healed the sick, cleansed the lepers, fed the five thousand, and touched your heart.  He compels us to sit at His feet and learn, and when we do we feel as though we haven't eaten for a very long time.  We have been so busy taking care of our own needs we didn't realize how famished we had become.  He offers us His Word free of charge as bread to eat and digest.  But we must digest those words, one word at a time.  Words like - In the beginning God.  Words like - God rested.  Words like - Honor your father and mother that it may be well with thee and thou shalt live long in the land the Lord thy God giveth thee.  Words with promises, obligations, and commitment.



God also compels us to go further in our journey than we have ever gone before.  As I write that line, I am reminded of Samwise Gamgee in Lord of the Rings.  He came to a stop in the field and told Frodo that he had never gone further than that spot before in his life, and one more step would be further than he had ever gone.  God wants us to take one more step and go further than we have ever gone before.  He provides the tools for the journey - His Word - precious and life giving.  In it we drink in every thought that ever came from the heart of God and found it's way onto the pages of both history and our lives.  We might not think there is a connection between David's fight with Goliath, but how many giants do you have in your life today that you are trying to fight without God's help?



God provided men and women who have tread this road before us.  They wrote the songs we sing, the commentaries we study, and gave the sermons we listen to.  They show us the road they traveled in an effort to make our road easier, and the journey not quite so arduous.  When we listen to great men of God like Billy Graham who has spent his entire life in service to God we feel compelled to answer the call God has on our life.  When we read about Smith Wigglesworth we believe we too can raise the dead and  preach a word that will cause hearts to melt for God.  Our journey has gone full circle.



Again we are an infant trying to run ahead of God in our enthusiasm to learn as much as we can.  Again we think we can take shortcuts, but those shortcuts always end up being the longer road as we take two steps back and let Dad take the lead.



Deliver -



Any woman who has ever had a child knows the pain of delivery.  In delivery there is also preparation.  We prepare for a new person in our lives.  We read everything we can about how to raise this child.



God also prepared for the greatest delivery in the history of the world from the foundation of time - that moment before Creation when He decided to make us, until this moment as we sit here reading about the greatest adventure in history - the adventure of a trip to Bethlehem.  Why Bethlehem.  Why would God send a virgin and a young carpenter to Bethlehem?  Why not Jerusalem the seat of kings?  Isn't God's Son coming as a king?



Seven hundred years before Jesus birth was announced to a young virgin, God prepared His people for the day His Son would be born.  He prepared them by telling them it would be a virgin, not a married woman.  Why would God want to bring shame on a virgin by causing her to become pregnant?  Why would he cause Joseph to doubt the woman he had betrothed, and want to secretly put her away?  Why would God who created all things, do this to those two people?



Why have you taken the journey you have to this moment?  Why have you done the things you have to get where you are?



God was about to do something so tremendous it would take our breath away, but in order to do it, He had to do it through a common woman and a common man.  Mary was a woman devout to God, and Joseph was a carpenter, also a man devout to God.  God didn't use just anybody, He used two people who waited and longed for and believed in the promises of Isaiah.  They had been through the school of hard knocks and learned everything they could, and were not afraid to keep learning.  God was about to birth in them a new life.  It would not be just as the parents of the Son of God, but it would be a new road never taken by anybody before them.  They had to be teachable, pliant in the Master's hand, able to take the abuse that would come their way, and stand up to it.  The key here is they had to be pliant.  They showed they could walk two steps behind to glean everything they could from God in order to raise His Son.  They had to have a humble spirit, trusting God to take care of the smallest details in this yet path not yet taken.



Are you ready to allow God to work in you?  Are you ready to allow God to make a delivery in your life?  Are you ready to walk the road to Bethlehem, the birthplace of Kings?



Let's journey together.



Now where's that camel when I need him?