Paths Through Life

Mountain pathways cut out through human
tenacity. Would it be there if it were up to me?

Throughout life we talk a lot about roads—the paths of our lives—either physical roads or the direction we follow in life. In the scriptures people are always moving from one place to another either to conquer a nation or to visit a friend. Jesus Himself said “I am the Way" (John 14:6).

In Peru’s jungle the transportation infrastructure, or in many areas the lack thereof, makes getting from one place to another rather difficult. Where there are highways carved into the amazingly diverse landscape we often are in awe that engineers had the vision and the courage to lay their course and cut them through. Last week Dena and I drove from Lima across the Andes Mountains, crossing the divide at nearly 16,000 feet. At every turn of the highway I wanted to comment:

Indigenous settlement on the Tambo where
everyone lives off the land.

1. How did they even plot the course; who decided where the road would go?
2. How did they cut this shelf on the mountain?
3. How did people even get through here to settle the country in the first place?
4. How did they plant the electrical towers and hang the endless cables that crisscross the mountains?
And so goes the marveling at the feats of human endeavor.

Boats are often overloaded by operators who
put money ahead of safety.

When we had finished crossing the mountains, we eventually found ourselves on a boat overloaded with passengers on the Tambo River, journeying for eight hours to the city of Atalaya. Boat operators on the Tambo like to dangerously squeeze in as many passengers as they can. The result is a boat built for 30 that is carrying 75. Every movement of the tiller resulted in a swaying to the right or to the left and shrieks of terror from passengers. Five minutes after leaving the port, Dena and I looked at each other and asked whether we’d made a mistake to get on board. In places the river bottom is strewn with large boulders which kick up rapids of nearly two feet in height. Water pitched over the side of the boat to more shrieks from passengers. The press of the onboard crowd prevented us from moving either feet or rump and the long hours seemed endless. At times the rain fell and blew across the boat while a large plastic sheet was unrolled form the bow toward the stern and everyone hunkered down beneath it.

Impressive waterfall
over the Tambo River.

The agony of the ride was tempered by scenery that took one’s breath away. Again, we marveled at God’s creation and thanked Him for the opportunity to see it. A nice lawn chair on a strong deck with some burgers grilling would have been more pleasant, but the sight of waterfalls gushing from rock cliffs 500 feet above the jungle defies description.

Makeshift ferry across the Perene
carried our taxi and us.

These courses through the wild countryside of Peru were found and established over time by men and women who desired to get from point A to point B. In their need and tenacity they purposed in their hearts and they set their minds on the goal and they found a way. Some lost their lives in the process and the rest of us, centuries later in some cases, reap the benefits.

Such musing causes me to do a check on my own tenacity and perseverance. Do I have what it takes to plot a difficult course and get there, even though the way is difficult and fraught with danger or obstacles?

“I am the Way…” I think Jesus’ intention here was both to assure us that He IS the ONLY way to the Father and to teach us that through Him I CAN! Philippians 4:13 affirms that “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” The road through and over the mountains of my life is often difficult. What I try to do in my own strength results in failure. His strength leads me to success. It’s a simple truth so why is it so difficult to live out? Those Spanish explorers and later engineers who found their way across mountain peaks and valleys did so empowered by human will. God has implanted in me something infinitely more powerful if I tap into it. It’s the force of my human will that usually keeps me from it. How powerful yet how shallow this will of mine!
Heavenly Father, please give me the will to conquer my will and the strength of your Spirit to do so. You are the Way that leads to life and to daily victory as I travel the rough and watery paths through life.

Ears to Hear

Joab asked, “What’s the meaning of all the noise in the city?” 1 Kings 1:41

When I was in college I hung around a lot with my dear Christian friends Ron and John. We played tennis, camped, and sometimes just goofed off. Like many young people then and today we liked to listen to music and felt it was necessary to turn on contemporary Christian music both in the car and in the dorm. We didn’t have MP3 players then (I won’t mention that 8-track tapes were the format of the day), but we had radios and we had vinyl records.

We began to notice our own tendency to turn on the music and began to joke that it was necessary to have music in order to breathe. If no music was playing, one of us would grasp his throat and make like he was suffocating. It was good for a laugh.

In Latin America, especially in places having a warm climate, the storefronts are open, the walls are cement, and the streets are filled with noisy motorcycle taxis, buses, or cars with leaky mufflers. As the result, the ambient noise level is excruciating. To carry on a conversation is difficult at best with the constant roar from outside. There is the belief among merchants that to attract business and/or make clients happy one must have a television set on the wall with the volume set to maximum. To carry on a conversation over roasted chicken in this environment is challenging. Add to this the need to hear clearly enunciated Spanish words in order to respond correctly and the frustration mounts.

Again, the sound has become the air we breathe. Here in Peru the sound is the air and the air is the sound. There is no escape from it, not in the city center, not in your bed at night. In our jungle town our windows have only screen wire and no glass so the sounds of the city and the sounds of nature float on the breezes and come crawling into our ears. Sleep becomes evasive as we lie on our beds listening to the blasting thump and grind of a birthday party or a nearby discotheque.

The sounds of the jungle town are physical audio waves that pass through the air and bounce about our world carrying words of vital communication or unwanted distraction. Another kind of sound has the same effect but in the inner parts of our lives where we accept or reject the sometimes subtle and sometimes not so subtle messages of the world. What motivates me, what stirs me, what captures my attention, or what bores me are all influenced by the messages that assail me day in and day out, almost wherever I go.

Whether in the midst of all of this I am able to hear God’s voice is determined by my installed filtration device. Jesus said, “Those who have ears to hear, let them hear…” Hearing is not only skin deep (or ear deep) and involves understanding. Truly hearing. Truly comprehending. Am I able to filter out the “noise” of the world: the distracting and tempting false messages that beg to affect my motives, my desires, my perceived needs? Do I filter the bombarding messages through the truth of God’s word and accept or reject the noisy messages in the light its teaching? Am I adding to the confusion by seeking out more noise and filling my surroundings with what does not honor God? Do I never take time to just be still and let Him speak to me?

I can’t escape the physical audio impulses that come flooding into my head almost continually. I can, however, close my spirit to the messages that block out the more desirable message of God’s truth. To do so I have to install the filters and maintain them. I have to turn up the sound of God’s voice in my head and heart: the oxygen that truly lets my spirit breathe.

Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says…    Revelation 3:6

Into the Light

This year’s rainy season has been extremely rainy. It came late and for a time we wondered if there would really be a rainy season at all. Normally the rains come with increasing frequency starting in November and then peak in January, tapering off in April. Technically we are at the peak of the season, but this peak seems to be a bit taller, steeper, and pointier than those seasonal peaks in recent memory.

The skies hang heavy over Pucallpa most days with little to no sunshine. One may not see the blue of the sky for days at a time. Rains fall intensely in the wee morning hours and then taper off at daybreak. Some days the rain sets in at dawn and keeps up a steady drenching intensity that lasts throughout the day. The runoff finds its way to the creeks which groan under the load of water they must channel to the larger rivers. The volume of water that reaches the main waterways is staggering and occasionally is much more than they can bear. The rivers become monsters of unrelenting power that swell outside their boundaries and become a nightmare to anyone living near the level of their banks. Recently whole communities have lost their homes as the crest of water swept away everything they had and held dear.

Rainy season cloaks the jungle in a mantle of gray, everything dripping with water, the ground saturated and giving less resilience than a dish sponge. Mud is the order of the day and it coats shoes, sidewalks, floors, rugs, car seats; forms the floor of trails and yards, and is the ever-present nuisance that makes everything a little harder to do.

Today Dena and I flew to Lima to take care of some necessary ministry business. We had boarded the plane at 6 AM in the midst of that rainy season muck and downpour. Our flight took us high over the top of the Andes Mountains, far away from the jungle mists. We stepped off the plane into bright sunshine. Lima is on the desert coast of Peru and it never rains there. February is summer and there was not a cloud in the sky. The colorful radiance of everything we beheld seemed to be almost surreal. It was like stepping into a beautiful photograph where everything is bright and perfect.

 

The experience of this migration from darkness to light was truly interesting. It was as if someone really had turned on the lights. For me it immediately illustrated what happens in a life that comes into a relationship with the Lord Jesus. Where there was only darkness and “rain” the light now shines. Everything that was dismal and depressing now comes into brilliant clarity. Traveling to Lima we had come out of the darkness and gloom and into the glorious light. Jesus, through His shed blood purchased our forgiveness and has brought us into the light of His loving presence.

For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.  2 Corinthians 4:6

Come into the Light. Let Him illuminate the misty gray and dark areas of life!