If a trumpet is blown in a city will not the people tremble? If a calamity occurs in a city has not the
Lord done it? -Amos 3:6
Wilderness. Without God’s Word as a lens, the world
warps. Twisted and skewed. The restless wrestle but we expect to be
exempt. Excused from hardship. Relieved of difficulty. Immune from the wilderness.
But steady and sure, His Word reminds:
These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have
peace. In the world you have
tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world. -John 16:33
God is always good. His promises are sure and His mercies are
new, but no one escapes the wilderness … not if God has driven us there.
And there? That wilderness? It may just be the kindness of God. Because it’s in the wilderness where people
meet, I mean REALLY meet, their God.
It was in the wilderness where the
hope of Jesus shone forth, foreshadowing the victory of our Lord over the devil
(Genesis 3). It’s in the wilderness when
Jacob sees the stairway to heaven and the Abrahamic Covenant is confirmed to him
(Genesis 28). It’s in the wilderness
that Elijah hears the still, small voice of God (1 Kings 19). It’s in the wilderness, on his way to
Damascus, that the transforming work of Jesus stops Saul of Tarsus in his
tracks, causing the “worst sinner” to be utterly transformed (Acts 9). It’s in the wilderness that God says to Hosea
I will draw you into the desert, I will pull you into the wilderness and there
you will stop calling Me Master and start calling Me Husband (Hosea 2).
The wilderness…it’s a place of
depth. Sometimes it’s lonely; often
uncharted. To be fair, it’s reasonably desolate.
But, hear me here…it’s always, always,
always purpose-full. The wilderness is nothing
less than a radical approach intended to awaken the people…to cause them to
stir and to prepare their hearts for whatever it is God has for them.
A voice calling, clear the way for the Lord in the wilderness; make smooth in the desert a highway for our God. Let every valley be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; and let the rough ground become a plain, and the rugged terrain a broad valley; then the glory of the Lord will be revealed and all flesh will see it together; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. -Isaiah 40:3-5
John the
Baptist—we know he was prophesied about in the Old Testament but once he
finally arrived on the scene, his ministry was to prepare the hearts of the
people for the coming of their long-awaited king. His ministry is described as “the voice of one crying in the wilderness.” His message? Repent! (Matthew 3:2).
So maybe He’s
brought you to the wilderness to bring you to repentance…Can I just tell you,
that even in the midst of the discipline of the Lord, we know it is the grace
of the Lord. You weren’t abandoned in
this place to be forgotten – you were placed in this wilderness to be found.
Wilderness isn’t happenstance –
it really is where God has placed you to be met by Him. Sometimes God takes us into the wilderness
not to abandon us, but because He wants to be alone with us. And though, at times, the wilderness may seem
barren, and other times overgrown, you’re not there for the periphery. You are there, divinely, to be drawn close.
Just like Moses was drawn out of the Nile, God draws us out to draw us
in.
Wilderness.
In this place, His mercy and
goodness flow over me. When chased by
circumstances…when He has driven me to the wilderness…it’s in this place that time
and time and time again I’m met by His faithfulness. In this walk of the being
redeemed, there’s no wilderness too wild that isn’t touched by His goodness and
mercy.
From the Fullness of His Grace,
Lacey
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