Forced Desert Retreats

This  meditation of mine appeared in the Conversations Journal blog. I thought it might be helpful to you!
http://conversationsjournal.com/2011/09/forced-desert-retreats/

God Offers Us Comfort in the Wilderness of Suffering and Difficulty

Comfort.

 “The LORD will surely comfort Zion and will look with compassion on all her ruins; he will make her deserts like Eden, her wastelands like the garden of the LORD. Joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the sound of singing” (Isaiah 51:3-4).


When our souls are tragically ripped from us, when searing wilderness pain has us begging for death instead of life, God gently comforts us. When we’re in the midst of unimaginable pain, it may be hard for us to believe that God will comfort us, for our pain continues unabated. But God, unlike many others, doesn’t expect us to quickly snap out of pain-induced depression. And he doesn’t endorse well-meant but ill-timed Christian platitudes like, “God has a plan for all of this,” when it takes supernatural strength for us just to cope with a new day.

No. He knows we’re human—that we mourn and suffer and shake our fists in anger because of the seeming injustice of it all. He understands suffering. And when the pain is most tender, the Holy Spirit quietly makes us aware that God is sitting with us in the wilderness, and like a mother with a young child, God beckons us to lay our heads down in his lap so he can gently and lovingly stroke our foreheads.

At first we resist, sobbing, shaking, screaming, pounding our fists in hysterics, demanding answers, trying to make sense of it all. Like a young child, we lack the maturity to comprehend the meaning of the soothing answers God offers.

But as his love and kindness penetrate our fitful senses, our sobs and soul seizures cease. Slowly we begin to calm down. Again we bury our wet faces in his lap, using his robe to wipe away tears and runny noses. Although there’s been little change in our circumstances, we feel a slight but perceptible shift inside of us as we gaze into his face. Somehow we feel comforted even without having received satisfactory answers. In the wilderness, God sits with us as we absorb little doses of his comfort and peace, until we are strong enough to stand up on our own.

~ Marlena

God Reveals Our Identities in the Wilderness

Revelation of identity. Whether consciously or subconsciously, many of us spend our time searching for our identities, while others of us are desperately seeking to shed them in favor of becoming someone else. “Who am I?”, “Who can I become?”, and “Where do I belong?” are the questions that pull at us, motivating much of our behavior. Upon reflection, we find that deep inside of our souls dwells the haunting suspicion that who we are now is a mere phantom of who we’re supposed to be, or perhaps nowhere close to who we’re supposed to be. We’re half alive, searching for life, trying to find ourselves.

That is why the realization that God chooses to reveal who we are during our wilderness journey comes as such a shock. It is probably the last place we thought to look. It seems incredibly strange that God would reveal our identities in the crucible of life. But he often does.

During Lent I will not be writing new posts but will be scheduling reposts to be posted. These are some that I think are dandy. Blessings to you these 40 days as you walk with Christ through the wilderness.

Purification in the Wilderness of Suffering.

During Lent I will not be writing new posts but will be scheduling reposts to be posted. These are some that I think are dandy. Blessings to you these 40 days as you walk with Christ through the wilderness.


Purification.

God uses wilderness experiences to purge us of multi-layered, deep-rooted sins, imperfections, and falsehoods. While they may or may not be obvious to us, they’ve burrowed down into the crevices of our souls. God aims to purge us of these deeply buried anti-Gods lest they attempt to overthrow him. But he is gracious and compassionate. Purgation is such an agonizing process that he does not purify us all at once lest we perish. Instead, during each wilderness experience he removes one layer. The next layer he leaves for another time. Even so, a sort of death happens in each stage of wilderness purification: mortification, repentance and death to the anti-Gods within, including the anti-God of self.

Though I Walk Through The Valley . . . .

An excerpt from Phillip Keller's book, A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23:

"I recall one year when an enormous flock of over 10,000 sheep was being taken through our courntry en route to their summer range. The owners came asking permission to water their sheep at the river that flowed by our ranch. Their thirsty flocks literally ran to the water's edge to quench their burning thirst under the blazing summer sun. Only in our valley was there water for their parched flesh. How glad we were to share with them.

As Christians we will sooner or later discover that it is in the valleys of our lives that we find refreshment from God himself. It is not until we have walked with him through some very deep troubles that we discover he can lead us to find our refreshment in him right there in the midst of our difficulty. We are thrilled beyond words when there comes restoration to our souls and spirits from his own gracious Spirit . . . .

Often we pray or sing the hymn requesting God to make us an inspiration to someone else. We want, instinctively, to be a channel of blessing to other lives. The simple fact is that just as water can only flow in a ditch or channel or valley--so in the Christian's career, the life of God can only flow in blessing through valleys that have been carved and cut into our lives by excruciating experiences."

Wilderness Testing Unveils the Condition of Our Hearts

Listen to what Moses says to the Israelites and to us about wilderness testing (Deuteronomy 8:2-5):


Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD. Your clothes did not wear out and your feet did not swell during these forty years. Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so the LORD your God disciplines you.

Like the Israelites, we are unaware of what lurks in the depths of our hearts. But if we are ever to be transformed in the wilderness, we need to know the true condition of our hearts. St. Macarius accurately and picturesquely describes the heart this way:

The heart itself is but a small vessel, yet dragons are there, and there are also lions; there are poisonous beasts and all the treasures of evil. But there too is God, the angels, the life and the kingdom, the light and the apostles, the heavenly cities and the treasuries of grace—all things are there. (H.43.7)

When wilderness testing unveils the condition of our hearts, we are humbled because we realize just how often we’re on the verge of denying Christ and worshiping idols. And we realize how completely dependent we are on God and his Word for every breath of grace-filled air.

God Deals With Self-Pity in the Wilderness

This is an excerpt from Eugene Peterson's book Where Your Treasure Is. I highly recommend it. He reflects on the Psalms to show how God "unselfs" us. I thought you'd appreciate what he has to say about unself-pity. Below is part of a reflection on Psalm 77 pp.107-108

"Not until this wound is dealt with for what it is--in this case, malodorous self-pity--can salvation be said to be accomplished . . . self-pity is not pressure that exacts concessions from the Almighty. Rather, it is an occasion that God uses to work in our largely self-generated misery to bring about his pleasure, which we are surprised to find is also our pleasure. The hand outstretched in self-pity is answered by the hands of Moses and Aaron. Their hands do not protect people from trouble but train them in the midst of it. They do not hold the hands of the people, sympathizing with them over their loss of home and security in Egypt. They take their hands and lead them into the harsh desert. The redemption has already been accomplished (by the 'arm' of the Lord, v. 15). Now the life of faith must be learned. A life of compassion must be nurtured. This can only be done in the midst of hurt and pain, where wisdom is inaccessible to self-pity. God does not answer our self-pitying request but our need for unselfing. He enters our lives and provides prophet and priest to lead us into and through the wilderness of temptation and trial. Only then can we learn the ways of providence and discover the means of grace--a long difficult, mercy marked, grace-guided forty years that represents the middle of the journey for persons who live by faith. It is a journey through which we learn personal morality and social responsibility. Salvation is put to the work of building community, engaging in worship, encountering evil.