Drowning in the Desert

I think I'm starting to understand just a little bit how the Israelites must have felt out in that desert for 40 years. I had never really stopped to think about how long that is before. I mean, I can't stand to be anywhere for very long. I was stuck in traffic yesterday for just over five hours, and I thought I was gonna lose it. An hour in class feels like eternity. Standing in line for more than three minutes is almost unbearable. And waiting through the previews before a movie, forget about it. The point is I'm impatient. Being somewhere longer than the amount of time I planned on being there is miserable.

This semester has felt like nothing but walking through an expanse of wilderness so vast that I can't even imagine anything else anymore. I feel like I've been here in this desert for so long that I can't remember what the mountaintops feel like. I look in front of me and see desert. I look behind me and it's there too. It's above me and below me and on every side. Man, 40 years must have seemed like an eternity.

But here's what I'm learning. Maybe I've been so focused on finding my way out of the desert that I have not realized that there's a purpose for being here. This is where God is teaching me the most. This is where He is disciplining me. The desert is where we grow the most. It's where we are so thirsty and tired of walking and desperate that we have no choice but to rely on God to provide that next drink and the strength for that next step. It's where we learn to trust him and to depend on him for everything.

Maybe the desert is just life. And maybe those mountaintop experiences are just the oases along the way.

"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 on 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. " -Deuteronomy 8:2-5

Weary friends who find yourselves also walking through the desert, take heart. God is very much walking there with you. I find comfort in knowing He's here with me.