Who led you through the great and terrifying wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water, who brought you water out of the flinty rock, who fed you in the wilderness with manna that your fathers did not know, that he might humble you and test you, to do you good in the end (DT 8.15-16).
A few years ago, our family took a vacation out west. The hardest part of the trip was Kansas (no offense, Kansans). When you drive through Kansas, for what seems like weeks the scenery never varies. Nothing but farmland, farmland, and more farmland starboard, lee, fore and aft. The highway is monotonously straight. After a few hours you enter a state of suspended animation. To stay awake you slap your face and pound your thighs and turn the AC to subarctic. You play “I spy”, with the kids, but you’re finished in 45 seconds after they guess “sky” and “wheat.” You’re so desperate to entertain yourself you start singing Barry Manilow songs.
Sometimes life feels like a drive through Kansas.
Imagine what it was like for Israel in the wilderness. Manna for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and evening snack. For 40 years. Nothing to look forward to but sun, sand, and more sun and sand. The high point of the day would be checking underneath your sleeping bag in the morning for scorpions. Talk about monotonous. Even their shoes didn’t wear out for 40 years.
God takes most Christians through desert experiences.
It’s part of our training. If God led Moses, David, Paul and Jesus into the desert, we can expect the same. But God doesn’t forget about us when we’re there. He works in us in those times. He humbles us. He tests our faith. He teaches us to be content and rejoice, to trust and depend on him, to persevere, and to live on every word that proceeds from his mouth.
Do you feel like you’re in a dry place right now?
If you have trusted Christ for salvation, then God is at work in your life to do you good in the end. You have been joined to Christ, who will be with you in your wilderness, and strengthen you with his own strength. Though your circumstances may be dry, Christ is a fountain of life and an inexhaustible supply of grace to you.
photo by Bartek Kuzian
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
Thanks, this is so timely!
(On a side note, i remember on honeymoon travelling on a bus through the Sinai region. Boring as anything, every 5mins Babs or i would declair to eachother “Look there’s a bush, Moses saw one of those on fire & not burn out!”
It made me sympathetic to the moanings of the Hebrews & i know i’d have been complaining like mad!)
Hey Gary,
If I had such a tough time in Kansas, I don’t think I could survive the Sinai region…I need constant entertainment and amusement. Thanks for commenting!
What a cool verse; thank you for sharing. Here is a wilderness-related selection from ‘Shortcomings’ in The Valley of Vision:
“Help me to see that although I am in the wilderness it is not all briars and barrenness. I have bread from heaven, streams from the rock, light by day, fire by night, thy dwelling place and thy mercy seat. I am sometimes discouraged by the way, but though winding and trying it is safe and short; Death dismays me, but my high priest stands in its waters, and will open me a passage, and beyond is a better country. While I live let my life be exemplary, When I die may my end be peace.”
Hi Rachael,
Thanks for the quote from Valley of Vision! Can’t do any better than that.
Hey Mark,
and the sharp contrast of the good land in the future.
Great encouragement today, I’m currently reading through The Message of Deuteronomy by Raymond Brown. He talks about the theme of change in this chapter of Deuteronomy, the fact that there is an arresting word picture of the barren desert which represents the past…or Kansas!
Even the times of the Israelites adversity had all been lovingly designed by a loving father who supplied their every need. We can take comfort in the truth of God’s providence and know that even the various trials that enter our lives are divinely designed for our benefit and ultimately for our good and God’s glory.
Thanks for yet another great encouraging word! Appreciate you a ton!
I was going to say Carry on My Wayward Son (Kansas reference) but I thought that would have been totally cliche’ !!
Blessings
Ron Reffett
Thanks for your comments Ron! I’m so grateful for God’s Providence. And hey, great song reference too!
Hey mark! I read this the other day and was encouraged but there were no fireworks! Well, today I happened upon this post again and it encouraged my little socks off! Thanks! I’m so glad that every trial is filtered through the lens of God’s care and that ultimately He has our best interest at heart. It so easy to just think that God is working only for His glory and that somehow that means I get the short end of that deal. I’m so glad that God is not like that. Its somehow encouraging to realize that my view of God is distorted because He is so much greater than my little heart can or could ever imagine! That He would work, even through trials to bless me just makes things in my head explode! (In a good way)! Thanks yet again for such a great reminder!
Hey Emily,
Interesting that you would think God is working only for his glory and somehow giving us the short end…I think most of us would have that same thought from time to time. Great insight. Yep – he’s using even our trials to do us good – and more good than we can even imagine. Thanks for your example of humility and your comments.
growing up i heard a lot of statements like “don’t question, just obey, because i’m your parent, that’s why, etc.” and in my mind because those decisions often didn’t feel good or especially loving, I equated that with an “all-powerful” (in my kid eyes) parent that didn’t have my good in mind. questioning was seen as rebellion or disobedience. i’m not sure if that makes sense but i find it so easy to transfer that interpretation to God as well.
I heard a sermon a while back that God is all powerful, all knowing and all loving. and that we must understand that He is all 3. i tend to forget the “all loving” and only think of God as all-powerful and all-knowing… which ends in me often fearing God, attempting to hide my sins and thinking He’s “out to get me” (because after all, He knows all my sin and He has the power to destroy me) … I forget that the gospel speaks to this fear… that He destroyed the power of my sin through Jesus on the cross and that when I became His child He gave me all the righteousness of His Son!
i’ve found much comfort over the past few years since I became a Christian in knowing that there’s a freedom to take my aches and complaints and questions to God… especially in the wilderness seasons . i’ve never known that side of God’s character until lately. and honestly, Mark, its SO refreshing… to know that when I question and lament the wilderness, that God understands my weakness and merely asks me to come to Him trusting that He is good and that even this is working for my good. (not saying that’s an excuse for me to grumble and complain like the Children of Israel!)
the Psalms have helped so much with this… to see the boldness of David… that He would go to God and say that he is an upright man… David, who was a murderer and coveter and adulterer. But through Christ’s righteousness, he was acceptable before God. That example gives me boldness that through Christ, I too can come before the Throne of Grace in my need, in my wilderness and in my weakness.
Thanks. I needed this reminder.
Hey Emily,
Your comments show that Jesus has done great work in your life! To be able to trust that he is all-powerful, all knowing and all loving, is a mark of maturity. David’s example of bringing questions to God is encouraging that we can do the same; and there’s a big difference between questioning God and accusing him or charging him. Thanks again!