When i first met Jesus and went to church, i remember the story of Israel crossing the Red Sea and spending 40 years in the wilderness more than most other stories from the Bible. It’s a story of great deliverance, great rebellion, incessant complaining, God’s rich and miraculous provision, and the miles and miles and day after day life in the wilderness. i was taught to dread the wilderness, after all, look what happened to Israel. Older Christians would tell me, “Oh, you don’t want to be like Israel, camping in the wilderness for 40 years!” Over time there began to grow in me a subtle dread of spiritually being swept off into the desert to probably die from thirst for God only to befound one day as just a dry husk, slack jawed, stiff and with empty eye sockets, and no one will remember me. Or to be like Elisha in 1 Kings 19 and get driven into the wilderness only to lay under a tree, whining and pining about “where is God” and saying “i’m the only one left”. Boo-hoo, just lost and sad in the wilderness.

In light of that, lo these many years later, i’ve concluded that probably all Christians, at one time or another, will spend time in a spiritual wilderness of some sort. We will likely battle with even the most subtle of things. We’ll struggle to pray, fight off indifference, we’ll likely work to connect with others and feel like we’re just getting nowhere fast, and maybe even just quit church for a while. We’ll probably feel the press of darkness, our fears will haunt us, and suddenly God will want us to do more than simply confess our faults one to another but He’ll want us to dig into the root of our conflicts. Oh and we’ll have to dig into all our “why”, with “why” being one of the most dreaded words in America today. Anyone knowing what dumb stuff we’ve been party to drives us into hiding, we discover secret sins lurking around in the back of our closets, encountering persistent bad attitudes, incognizant biases which persuade us so subtly, and unresolved old wounds that still whisper to us. Oh, yes, those pesky undelt with old wounds that have a way of surfacing at all the most inconvenient moments, dragging us back to the shadows of twisted thinking. The wilderness has a way of whittling us down to our most basic bits of faith making it so we know that we know exactly what is real and what is fluff. Gosh, we’ll probably even doubt we ever had any faith sometimes and then, yes then, we’ll feel ashamed of our shame and feel stupid about our doubts and we may even get good at running away.

But, let’s also see the amazing things that will happen while we’re in the desert or in the wilderness. We will stride forward with a new-found confidence and a more sure faith that God is all He said He is. We’ll learn how to overcome our tendency to panic when we don’t know what to do, and how to keep our head when the storm is howling. And what is most important, we will be spending close, one-on-one time with God, real personal time and conversation. He will teach us to pray, one of the most basic things all believers must learn to do considering it is an essential learned language all it’s own from the moment we were born again. We’ll become resilient and will find ourselves stronger with a new rhythm in the momentum of Grace. Yes, grace has momentum, like saying the more we live in grace the more we live in grace, and the closer we get to God the closer we get to God. Do you see it?

Here’s another insight. Although we’ll have to face ourselves and resolve the differences between our conscience and our character, which is a big deal, our fears and concerns about what other people think of us will begin to lose its power over us, not for us to be indifferent, but for us to re-prioritize within ourselves what is actually important. God has not and will not leave us to perish in a terrible place as we fear. Deuteronomy 32:10  “He found him in a desert land, and in the howling waste of the wilderness; he encircled him, he cared for him, he kept him as the apple of his eye.”

The wilderness and the desert are not terrible places as we’ve been led to believe. Sure there are storms, wild winds, pounding sun and heat, but, they are their own environment, designed by God to serve His purposes. Not to mention that the Lord goes with us and where ever Jesus is, that’s the best place we can be. i think my dread of those places is largely what makes them seem so awful, but maybe it’s more that they just don’t look like our comfortable home, we know where everything is and it’s all arranged to be ever so convenient. Not dreaded, they are simply different, and as you know, most of us don’t do “different” very well, at all.

My fears and failures don’t scare or frighten me much anymore. God’s grace overwhelms us in the flood. Having been caused to face those “shadows of death” I’ve realized all of the things I feared concerning myself were actually pretty true after all. And even in that, God’s grace overwhelms Us in the flood of unkind circumstances and dire events, and we are not swallowed up by our fear in the valley of the “shadow of death”. Having been in a position where I had no choice but to camp for a while, off and on, “in the valley of the Shadow”, eventually I saw it was just a shade, and I grew to not be gripped by paralysis due to my fears and failures. They are what they are, they are memories of fears and failures, and more importantly stories of God’s deliverance when my mourning was turned into dancing. Jesus is who He is and He lives in me. He is stronger than the shadow, He is better than the valley. Camping in the valley of the shadow of death I learned to make a warm campfire and build shelter and even find water. He prepared a table for me in the presence of my enemies. He forgives and heals all of our iniquities and transgressions and wounds, and God’s grace overwhelms Us in the flood. My fears and failures don’t scare me anymore.

Isaiah 35:1-2, “Even the wilderness and desert will be glad in those days. The wasteland will rejoice and blossom with spring crocuses. Yes, there will be an abundance of flowers and singing and joy! The deserts will become as green as the mountains of Lebanon, as lovely as Mount Carmel or the plain of Sharon. There the LORD will display his glory, the splendor of our God.”

i’m Social Porter for Living In His Name.