They will not hunger or thirst, nor will the scorching heat or sun strike them. For He who has compassion on them will guide them and lead them beside springs of water. Isaiah 49:10 NIV
As we spend longer in this wilderness season, I have more and more time to reflect on wilderness and what it really means. Our pastors have been walking us through the wilderness for weeks now in their daily devotionals, and I am thankful for those emails. Abraham, Moses, the Isrealites, Job, Jesus…they all spent time in the wilderness. I think that the wilderness is often where God speaks to us in the deepest and most intimate way because it’s when we come to the end of ourselves that we really start to grasp the enormity and wonder of our God. It’s the place where our our inadequacies and our inability to change the circumstances meet God’s power, strength and love. This collision in our deepest, and often darkest place is often where we can see who we really are and where our hope, trust and value lie.
My deepest wilderness came when for years, I struggled with post-partum depression. My husband and I prepared for the possibility of it before the birth of our first child, and we thought that I had avoided it’s clutches. I hadn’t. The onset was gradual, and the experience was dark and lonely. I appeared fine to most people I spoke to. (We’re all so good at putting on masks when we need to, aren’t we?) It was what went through my mind during that time that caused the depths that I fell into and the length of time I stayed there. I posted Psalm 3:3 on my bathroom mirror so I would read it several times a day “But you, Lord, are a shield around me, my glory, the One who lifts my head high”. I knew that my glory came from God and that only He could shield me from the fiery arrows of the enemy. Only with His help could I lift my head high. I knew that because I am made in the image of God that I could call myself good, even though everything inside of me was screaming against that truth. I also knew that who I was in that time was not who I was meant to be. I just didn’t realize that sometimes we need to spend time in the wilderness to get us to where God wants us and who He wants us to be.
I’m in another wilderness right now. We all are. It feels like we’re a pig on a spit being roasted over the fire. Spinning. Spinning. Being roasted slowly. I wonder how God sees us right now? I think that as our heavenly Father He sees us with a heart overflowing with love, compassion and mercy. He feels the heat of the fire as we slowly spin around and around, not sure when the wilderness will end, if it will recur or what anything (ourselves, our world, our church…) will look like on the other side. We’re all hurting. We all feel loss. But we have hope. The Word says that we will not hunger or thirst. The heat and sun will not scorch or strike us. When we look to God and reflect on His words, and not our thoughts, our feelings or our circumstances, our perspective starts to shift. It’s not always quick, and the wilderness journey is never easy. But sometimes we need a wilderness, much as we don’t want it. Because sometimes the fire under the spinning spit isn’t just roasting us, it may be that it’s also refining us. I don’t know about you, but if it takes a few wilderness journeys to refine me into the image that I was created in, I’m going to keep my head lifted high. Because I know that in the same way that I entered into each wilderness in life, the lifter of my head will guide me and lead me beside springs of water. Because where God is, even in the wilderness, there is life and life in abundance.
The thief comes only in order to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance [to the full, till it overflows]. John 10:10 AMP
Growing Into Up 