Wilderness Days

Still on holiday so here is another retread. I’ve tried to freshen it up, but it may still sound familiar. Enjoy!

Poet Jan Richardson writes these lines.

I am not asking you to take this wilderness from me, to remove this place of darkness where I come to know the wildness in me.

But send me tough angels, sweet wine, strong bread: just enough.

The theme of wilderness remains consistent in many of the God stories we know and love, like

• Moses chasing sheep out by himself

• The Jews wandering in the wild for 40 years

• John the baptizer sharpening his message in the desert

• Jesus facing satan and inaugurating his ministry out in the empty places

• Paul, after being struck blind, waiting alone not knowing what’s next

God is a master of meeting his people in the wilderness.

When we think of wilderness we must disabuse ourselves of the notion of being out in the woods with the friendly forest creatures and babbling brooks and soaring vistas. The wildlands of the bible are places where there is little water to drink, scant shelter to be found, no food that will not spoil and few creatures that will not harm.

Wilderness places are those of desperation, and some of you reading this today feel this kind of wilderness might as well be your permanent mailing address. Read on, because you are not alone.

The wilderness should never be taken lightly.

We can easily hang descriptive words on these times, like: harsh, lonely, desolate, painful, anxious, depressed and lost, that all wrap themselves around the idea of the wildlands. These are the places we try to avoid and seek an exit from as soon as possible; but if we have eyes to see and ears to hear, these places are also where the most rich times with God can be discovered.

In the wilderness, believers learn to trust in a Father who knows what is going on and purposes to use it all in building a life worth living. To Jesus, the desert is familiar territory, so his followers know we have a savior who has endured the same hardships we face and goes before us so we can follow with confidence into our beyond. The Spirit encourages and even steps in to pray for us when the words won’t come as we traverse deserts that seem to have no trails to follow.

It seems that God loves the wilderness, not for the hardness of the times, but for the sweetness of the growth it has potential to foster. Lots of stuff can propel us into the wilderness like disease, death of a loved one, betrayal by a friend or mate, reversals of fortune, and on and on. These are the times we would never choose to retrace, but because of the lessons learned about real life and the mercy and closeness of God, would not exchange.

Like you, I’ve spent my share of days in the wilderness. Stripped of self-sufficiency and pleading for mercy brought into stark relief my relationship with a God who is closer than I ever imagined, and essential if I was to go on. No person alive is immune to desert trek times, it comes with the price of admission and carries potentially life-changing (for the good) possibilities.

God meets people in the wilderness and they always emerge...changed. People just like you.

In the wilderness we not only get a good view of life but also find Jesus easier to see and talk with and walk with through our mess. It is there that the noise of the world we inhabit is turned down so the whisper of the Spirit can be heard and recognized, reminding me that we are his beloved.

God meets his beloved in the wilderness. It remains a place of meeting up, not of casting away.

I love the last line of the poem since it is an honest plea for help from the One who will surely give it. I like “tough angels” since a wise ask is for strength from God, not to mention trusted friends who will pick up the phone and not let you down. The next two on the list, “sweet wine, strong bread,” are the practical needs in front of us to have enough strength to get up and walk through...again...the desert of my today.

The final words, “just enough” falls in line with the ways of God in the desert. Remember when the Israelites were trekking in the desert and God provided the manna? It would last for just the day and would spoil if left for tomorrow. Daily dependence is the point. Just enough, not too much. Just enough for this day and this challenge and this opportunity.

God meets followers in the empty places with just enough to face with strength what they face today.

If you find yourself today in a dry and lonely place, take heart. You follow a God who loves you and has not and never will forget you. The trials of this world are hard, but Jesus is in the midst of it with you and is building through your life a formidable life of faith, and has gone through his desert to prepare a place for you, forever. And this experience offers lessons for growth learned nowhere else.

If you read this and wonder why you are unscathed by wilderness times, stick the message of this note in some crack of your memory. There will come a day when you wake up to see nothing but sand and sun and not much else to help. There you will meet up with the God who loves you if you will choose to see him.

God meets people in the wilderness. People just like you.

How about music for the day

Shake the Blues Away...Doris Day

Classic Four Tops...Reach Out

Some Chris Tomlin

CeCe Winans Blessed Assurance

Joy in the Desert

...and a couple of funnies

Two friends are talking over lunch on an outdoor patio.

“So what are you doing for summer vacation?” one asks.

The other one replies, “I want to go to Italy again, like last year.”

The first asks, “Wow! You went to Italy last year?”

The other answers, “No, but I wanted to.”

**************

Realizing that their home just wasn’t big enough with the new baby in the house, Little Johnny’s parents discussed moving to a bigger one.

Little Johnny sat patiently listening to his parents, then piped in,

“It’s no use. He’ll just follow us anyway.”