Don't Make Your Wilderness Into Your Grave

We've all experienced a season in the wilderness.  Maybe we've even experienced more than one.

In our memories, it is a dark place of uncertainty, struggle, difficulty, and often pain.  It is not a desert we ever would have chosen to walk through, even if what it led to was worth the trip in retrospect.

There we stood in the wilderness--day after day, month after month, maybe even year after year....struggling to lift one foot in front of the other as we slogged up sandy dunes taller than we had ever climbed before.  Each dune was so tall that when we slid down to the valley between them, we could see neither where we were headed nor where we had been.  Some days, in the deepest core of our wilderness, even when we mastered another summit, all we beheld from that height were equally-high mountains of sand as far as the eye could see.

We lived in the wilderness, a barren desert with no entrance to retreat back through and no visible exit.

Why am I here?

The Israelites surely must have asked this very question as they camped in the wilderness with Moses after leaving behind the slavery of Egypt and aiming towards their Promised Land.

We all know the story, how an eleven day journey transformed into a 38+ year wandering in the desert after the people lacked sufficient faith to possess the Promised Land.  Thirty-eight years of pointless wandering in circles, all the while transforming their wilderness into a graveyard as tens of thousands of people died to fulfill God's judgment.

God said to that unfaithful group: "your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness, and of all your number, listed in the census from twenty years old and upward, who have grumbled against me, not one shall come into the land where I swore that I would make you dwell, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun. But your little ones, who you said would become a prey, I will bring in, and they shall know the land that you have rejected. But as for you, your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness. And your children shall be shepherds in the wilderness forty years and shall suffer for your faithlessness, until the last of your dead bodies lies in the wilderness" (Num. 14:29-33).

God's desire was not for the Israelites to wander aimlessly in their wilderness for 40 years.  He longed for them to have faith in Him.  He longed for them to obey Him.  Instead of grumbling and disobeying God in their lack of faith, God wanted them to understand that yes, they were meant to go through this difficult time in the wilderness, but to also understand that He. Was. There.  What's more, He. Was. Enough. 

God was with them in the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night.  God was with them in the daily manna.  God was even with them in the evening quail after they grumbled about the monotony of manna.   

All the while, He was striving to prepare their hearts in that wilderness.  He was working to bring them to a Promised Land of plenty that He had prepared for them.  

As Moses told the Israelites, "And he [the Lord] brought us out from there [Egypt], that he might bring us in and give us the land that he swore to give to our fathers" (Deut. 6:23). 

The Lord brought them out of Egypt so he could bring them in to the Promised Land.   

He didn't merely bring them "out" in order for them to remain in the wilderness.  He desired to bring them "in" to a land where they could be fruitful.  And yet, instead of believing God....instead of obeying God, their disobedience kept God from bringing them "in" to the land of promise.

What cuts me to the quick is that last verse in the Numbers 14 passage above: "And your children....shall suffer for your faithlessness" (v. 33).

The children suffered for the faithless disobedience of their fathers and mothers, grandfathers and grandmothers.  Innocent children.....suffering needlessly for their elders' sin.  

This is not a mere history story.  It is not a "let's point our fingers at those stupid Israelites" story either.  No.  This lesson applies even to those of us this side of the cross--to those of us adopted into Moses and Abraham's spiritual family.  

Jesus told His disciples to expect difficulty in their lives if they chose to obey and follow Him: "A servant is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also" (Jn. 15:20). He promised them trials to test them, to sanctify their souls. In short, He promised the child of God seasons in the wilderness.

God will send you and me through the wilderness. If for no other reason, He will be saving us from ourselves by working to sanctify our souls.  It's just a matter of when.  

When those seasons come, though, we can rest in peace knowing that as we struggle through the difficult days, God does not intend for us to remain there in our wilderness until all that's left are our sun-bleached bones. The wilderness need not be our grave.  

God only leads us "out" into the wilderness to "bring us in" to something far greater, to somewhere that we can bear fruit!  It's simply up to us to seek Him in our difficulty so that our hearts do not turn bitter and defiant.  

Otherwise, in our disobedience, we not only doom ourselves to pointless wandering in our wilderness, but we doom our children to all too many years of that fate as well.



Image: Stone marked grave in Libya

My Father's Hands

My Father's hands are brushed milk chocolate by the sun, their tops stippled with a darker hue of brown. With each passing year, the skin thins to paper-weight, making large tendons jut up higher like earthquake-created mountain ridges, each crisscrossed by pulsing blue rivers that sustain life.

The roughness of working the land has started to give way to the softness of age, but the strength is still there because of constant labor. Still, these are the same hands that have provided for me, protected me, and led me to the path I now walk.

On Father's Day, I joined with a nation that gives thanks to earthly fathers.  It's important that we honor these great men.  What's more important, though, is to emphasize their continued importance in a nation where 19.7 million children are growing up in single-mother homes.

Men are important.  Fathers are important.

And yet, what is a father to be? How can men seek to become stronger, better fathers who leave a positive, Christ-filled legacy for their children? Or is it just too late?

Author Douglas Wilson says, "We learn what tangible fathers are supposed to be like by looking to the intangible Father. And we look to Him by looking at Jesus, the One who brings us to the Father" (p. 192).

The very essence of Christ was knit with the Father.  The logical outgrowth of such an intimate relationship is that the Father's nature was daily demonstrated through His Son.

Thus, to be a good earthly father is to mirror the eternal Father.  To mirror the eternal Father is to mirror Christ in one's heart, mind, speech, and actions.

Wilson concludes that one unifying characteristic both Christ and the eternal Father share is that of generosity.  He summarizes: God the Father is "generous with His glory (1:14), with His tasks (5:18), with His protection (10:28-32), with His home (14:1-2), and with His joy (16:23-24).  The Father gives (3:34-36).  The Father gives His Son (3:16; 18:11); the Father gives His Spirit (14:16-17); the Father gives Himself (14:22-24)....Christ images the Father, and we are to image Christ.  The way to do that is clearly to be open-handed" (p. 196-197).

This call to open-handed generosity does not mean that fathers are to give their children everything those little hearts desire.  Even so, this generosity does involve a giving of the tangible sort--a giving of financial support, of physical protection, of a roof overhead.  But it is more than that.  It is more a generosity of self.

A father is generous with his full attention.  "Full attention" does not mean having a conversation with a child when one eye is on the TV,  one finger on the computer keyboard, or one ear to the cell phone.  The eternal Father listened--really listened--to Jesus.  The Son never questioned whether His Father was truly listening or just nodding His holy head even though His ears were really closed.

Before raising Lazarus from the dead, Christ said aloud, "'Father, I thank You that You have heard Me. I knew that You always hear Me; but because of the people standing around I said it, so that they may believe that You sent Me'" (Jn. 11:41).   This kind of listening lets children know their ideas are important, they are important.

A father is generous with his example.  Like it or not, a father must be ever-conscious that every word and deed is an example for his child.  Christ said, "the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner" (Jn. 10:19).  To expect a child to do what the father does not is like expecting a child to fluently speak a language not spoken daily in the household.  Whatever daily "language" a parent's actions speak, that is the language he is teaching that child.  It may be a language of impatience, of greed, of apathy, of anger, of irreverence, of selfishness.  Or it may be a language of love, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self control, respect, peace.  

A father is generous with his teaching.  Most importantly, a father is generous with his teaching about God.  Many in my generation know of God. They were raised in church.  A good many even claim to be Christians, themselves.  Yet, too many fathers (and mothers) in this same generation are choosing to not raise their children in church.  Christ said, "It is written in the prophets, ‘ And they shall all be taught of God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father, comes to Me" (Jn. 6:45).  

But how can a child come to Christ is he has not learned from the Father?  Jesus said of the eternal Father, "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day" (Jn. 6:44).  If God the Father is the type that earthly fathers should imitate, then such would imply earthly fathers should also seek to draw their children to Jesus' feet.  A Godly father will draw his children to Christ not with his words alone but in deed as well.  As Jesus said "I showed you many good works from the Father" (Jn. 10:32).

This is the intimacy of fatherhood, something that gets lost in the idea that men are mere monetary providers, teachers of all things sports, tool, math, or science related.

Such spiritual intimacy with one's children is not something a man can drum up within himself.   It starts with a right relationship with the heavenly Father.

If a man's soul is not in a right relationship with God the Father, then he is limited to merely the generic generosity that is common to mortal man.  That's a recipe for failure. 

What a man is in his soul is all he can give to his child.

Pause and think on that.  

What a man is in his soul is all he can give to his child.

Ultimately, to learn how to be a good Father is to give one's heart to Christ, to seek first to become like Christ.  


(Posting from the archives tonight.  I am ever thankful for my earthly and heavenly fathers.)

To Run the Race Set Before Us

I took P.E. during my ninth and tenth grade years to get that requirement out of the way.  As a teenager, the idea of sweating for fun, well...wasn't.  The only thing I did like about P.E. was the huge fan the coach plugged in at the end of almost every class.  With a steady hum loud enough to muffle a murder, this big box on wheels towered above my 5'2" frame as its blades blew hurricane force gusts at a group of sweaty girls trying to cool off so their make-up wouldn't run.

In south Louisiana with 90 degree days even in December and an open-air gymnasium, sweating was a given.  Yet, amidst units on gymnastics, rollicking games of dodge ball, volleyball, and flag football, one of the worst had to be the unit on running.

Unlike the other sports where we got points just for dressing out and taking the field, this sport had requirements.  To earn an 'A,' I had to run a mile in under 15 minutes.  Every thirty seconds under 15 would earn me 10 bonus points.  

Every morning for weeks, I would double knot my tennis shoes and make four laps around the cushioned black oval.  I was motivated to earn that A (and those bonus points), so I sweated, ran until I had side stitches and thought my lungs would burst, then walked until I could run again.

It was horrible.  In the end, I did make an A and earned some bonus points, but I learned nothing about the benefits of pacing myself.

After that day, I didn't run again unless it was after/towards one of my runaway, screaming, bleeding children. I walked. Everywhere.  Sure, I walked brisk 14-minute miles, but still, it was walking.

Then came the opportunity to raise my three children with a different attitude about running by entering them into the Louisiana Kid's Marathon.  Even as I typed my name into the application, I was terrified, not that they couldn't do it but that I couldn't.  I routinely walked 8-10 miles a week, but that was walking.  This was running.

In Scripture, Paul speaks several times about running a race.  Honestly?  I've always hated those verses about racing because they've always made me feel like a loser, me, the woman who doesn't run.

Yet, after nine weeks of training, I have realized that running a physical race isn't really that much different than running a spiritual one...and that kind of spiritual running?  I do every day whether I call it running or not. 

In  Hebrews, Paul says, "Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.  For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart" (Heb. 12:1-3).

To the Corinthians, Paul writes, "Run in such a way that you may win. Everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. They then do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. Therefore I run in such a way, as not without aim; I box in such a way, as not beating the air; but I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified" (1 Cor. 9:24-27).

In both these Scriptures, Paul reveals several characteristics of physical running that apply equally to our walk (or run) on the narrow path to becoming more and more like Christ.

1.  There's Always an Excuse to Stop Running.  It's too cold, I have a scratchy throat, my feet hurt, supper will be on the table late, the laundry won't get folded. 

These same excuses can interfere with our prayer-life, our Bible reading, our commitment to any particular ministry.  And before we know it, we are encumbered, entangled by our excuses so that we stop running the spiritual race to become more Christlike, to deepen our relationship with the Father.  We must ask the Spirit to help us recognize the excuses for what they are and lay them aside so our focus is on Christ and Christ alone.

2.  Fix Your Eyes on Jesus.  My daughter learned this the hard way.  She would turn to see if her brother was catching up to her or would look down an extra second at a brightly colored leaf or interesting rock...and in that second when she took her eyes off the road ahead, she would trip and fall flat on her face.  

The same is true of our spiritual pilgrimage.  It is all too easy to allow our eyes to drop down to the troubling circumstances of life.  If we focus there on ourselves, it is all too easy to fall flat.  How will we make ends meet? What if the kids get sick again? How will I find another job?  No matter how difficult the path may seem, looking down at ourselves won't keep our feet moving.  It will only make us fall faster.  We need to fix our eyes on Jesus so He can help us put one foot in front of the other.

3.  Consider Your Goal or You Will Grow Weary and Lose Heart. 
When my children grew weary, I would remind them of the medal to come at the end of their 26th mile.  I would talk about how it would sparkle, about how they could show it to everyone.  In the midst of colds, viruses, and the stomach flu, this goal kept them going.  

As Christians, we, too, must strive to keep the state of the world or our circumstances from discouraging us.  We must keep up the pace, remembering that our goal is found not just here in material wealth or success in this life but in eternity to come.  On this side of the veil, our goal is to become more like Jesus not have a cushy 401K and retirement plan; to grow closer to Him with each passing season so that one day, we will achieve our ultimate goal of life in eternity with Him. 

4.  Discipline yourself with self control.
The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak--oh how I understand this.  I've caught myself thinking, "Just one day of not reading my Bible.  It won't matter.  I can just make up for it tomorrow by reading both lessons."  Or maybe it's more like, "I feel too tired to go to church this morning.  Surely they can find someone else to help with the children's lesson."  Or perhaps you've thought, "It's too cold to prayer walk today.  Those tracts probably wouldn't do any good anyway."  This goes back up to #1--our  minds can find an excuse for anything.  

The key is apply techniques learned in physical racing, such as pacing and disciplining ourselves.  Pacing ourselves means we need to not take on too much just for the sake of doing; we need to discern where God would have us do His kingdom's work and plug ourselves in there versus spreading ourselves thin doing everything and anything.  Likewise, disciplining  ourselves means making Bible study, prayer, and any other kind of ministry God has called us to, a routine.  

Sure, anything done just for the sake of doing it won't profit a person.  Yet, I have found that my heart and spirit are willing even when my flesh is weak.  Pacing and disciplining myself in the routine of spiritual disciplines helps my spirit overcome my flesh.

 My children are already asking when we're running our next kid's marathon.  And I?  I've caught myself considering a 5K in the future. 

If you are a believer in Jesus Christ, even if you're a couch potato, you have been set on the narrow path to run the race that has been set before you.  

Let us discipline ourselves, keep our focus, and not grow weary.  Let us run that race well to the glory of God the Father. 



Image: Husband and my youngest son--champions!  For the complete story and photos of our family's racing journey, read here and here. 

Avoiding Ceaseless Pursuits

In early 2009, my sister by marriage sent me a Newsweek article entitled "Generation Diva: How Our Obsession with Beauty is Changing our Kids".  According to the article, the lie society preaches that you are not “beautiful enough” is ensnaring younger and younger children; the statistics are alarming—14% of Botox injections are for 19 - 34-year-olds; cosmetic surgery numbers have doubled for those 18 and under; and American 8 – 12-year-olds alone spend $40+ million per month on beauty treatments. In fact, the average girl today will have spent “$300,000 on just her hair and face” by the time she is 50.

The article also quoted writer Susie Orbach's new book, Bodies: "good looks and peak fitness are no longer a biological gift, but a ceaseless pursuit. And obsession at an early age, she says, fosters a belief that these are essential components of who we are—not, as she puts it, 'lovely add-ons.' It primes little girls to think they should diet and dream about the cosmetic-surgery options available to them."

I have a young daughter, and this scares me.  

What a horrific lie Satan is dispersing through advertising, TV shows, magazines, radio— like a strong wind blowing seeds across the continent, each seeking to take root in young (and not so young) minds to grow into a monstrous, thorny obsession.

Yet, our gracious God knew many people would have self-esteem problems, so He caused His servant, David, to pen words about how beautiful we are to Him: “I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, And my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from You, When I was made in secret, And skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth” (Psalm 139:14-15, my Italics). Did you hear that? God’s “skillful” hands crafted you into something He considers “wonderful.” What plastic surgeon could possibly be more skillful than our God?

Perhaps, though, you are not be caught up in Satan’s lie that you are not “beautiful enough.”  Satan encourages Christians and non-Christians alike to grab hold of other "ceaseless pursuits" because of being led to believe they are “not enough” by society’s standards. In present-day America, several obsessions instantly spring to mind.

One is the lie that you’re not good enough to keep your job in this economy. 

Satan says that there are so many other people smarter than we are who could do our job so much better. The result? One, we make our job an obsession, ignoring all other aspects of our lives and families. Or, two, we obsessively worry all the time about being laid off or downsized.

Either way, we are ignoring God’s command in Matthew 6:25-27: "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?”

Does God promise we won’t lose our jobs? No, but He does promise to care for us in those times.

Another is the lie that you're not a good enough mother or father.


Satan whispers that if we don’t sacrifice everything for our child, don’t send him to a certain school, don’t involve her in certain sports, don’t give him this particular educational toy, then we’re ruining her chances for a successful future.

Consequently, we make our children our god, spending all week, including the Sabbath, giving them every advantage we can possibly squeeze in and teaching them that they are #1 in life. Not only does this make them ill-prepared for reality, but worst of all, it means we place them before God. Even in the Old Testament, God said, “You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3).

The list could go on. The point is that ANY time we believe that we’re not good enough, not smart enough, not beautiful enough, not _____ enough (you fill in the blank), we lose the confidence we need to be the best witness for Christ and we cease trusting in the power of the Holy Spirit within us.

Yes, alone we are never enough, but if it is something Christ calls us to, we are always enough. Instead of holding on to this truth, though, we take our eyes off Jesus and obsess about something temporal, not something everlasting.

In a sense, we become like Peter who believed enough in Jesus to get out of the boat and even, for a time, to successfully defy the laws of physics and walk on the water. But then, “when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, ‘Lord, save me!’ Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. ‘You of little faith,’ he said, ‘why did you doubt?’” (Matthew 14:30-31).

Was Peter “enough” on his own? Of course not. He needed Jesus. But, like Peter, we doubt ourselves, and so we needlessly obsess over things that aren’t worthy of our thoughts. But we are enough in Christ! In Christ, we are beautiful enough, smart enough; if we give Him our children and our marriages and seek to live up to His standards and not the world’s standards, we can be good enough parents and spouses.

Whatever lies Satan and the world are whispering in your ears, whatever obsessions you have waiting in the wings or that you are actively pursuing, they will diminish your confidence, power, and energy to live for Jesus.

The next time you have one of those “I’m not _____ enough” days, God has a Word to directly oppose that lie. He wrote it long ago and preserved it especially for you, for that specific moment when He knew you’d be needing to hear some Godly truth. If no Scripture springs to mind, find an Online Bible Concordance where you can look up a keyword. God has an answer to every lie Satan seeks to plant in your mind.

Seek that answer so the lie doesn’t take root.