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

If I Die Without Ever Knowing

It has been the same routine every Thursday morning for almost three years now.  The alarm brings a frown much earlier than usual, no matter how late my work the night before.  Except for those mornings that find the temperatures below freezing or rain pouring down hard upon the earth, I obediently rise to lace up my well-worn tennis shoes, load up whatever children are in the house, then drive to my local church house.  There, I gather with a handful of heavenly brothers and sisters to pray before driving together to one of dozens of neighborhoods within a ten mile radius of our church. 

Unlike three years ago, I no longer have to lug out the stroller and push two year old twins down the asphalt or maneuver them up and over the concrete curbs.  My now five-year-old children bounce, run, and leap as we walk, pray, speak God's love to any neighbors we come in contact with, and leave Scripture on every door in each subdivision. 

When I first felt God's call to commit myself to this ministry, I hoped I would make a difference.  I trusted in the words of Isaiah 55:11: "So will My word be which goes forth from My mouth; It will not return to Me empty, Without accomplishing what I desire, And without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it."

My heart clings to these words, that God will accomplish what He desires from our giving others His Word, no matter what.


But even the gentle wind manages to wear solid rock down to mere sand.  Year after year, I have not seen much fruit as a result of my obedience.  What's more, it has sometimes been difficult to find fellow laborers to walk with me on this journey to fulfill the command that "you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth" (Acts 1:8).

My feet continue to pound the pavement in my Jerusalem.  Every time I even think about calling it quits, that gentle voice within reminds me of this fact and spurs me onward once more. 

I remember my first voyage through the winding roads and cookie cutter houses that looked all the same.  More than once, we got "lost" while walking.  Now, though, I don't see my Jerusalem the same way.  Instead, I see the nuanced differences.  I pass by the yards a second, third, fourth time and remember them from before, praying for my Jerusalem not as an unknown place with unknown people but as somewhere familiar and filled with individuals. 

I know the house with the large dog whose paws reach the top of the fence, the house where the man asked me to pray for his cancer and who was cancer free when I knocked a year later.  There's the house with the pet potbellied pig, the one with the new mother of twins, the one whose occupant grew up in an orphanage.  I remember the house whose driveway was torn out last year, the one with the creepy pretend graveyard on the front lawn, and the one with cigarette butts strewn down the tiny front porch.  

This may not seem like a big deal, but it is a giant step in coming to see people as God does--individuals, all in need of a Savior, not just identical house after another in an endless line of nothing that I can ignore as meaningless and unimportant. 

A few weeks ago, I read an article I haven't been able to get out of my mind:

Missionary Died Thinking He Was a Failure: 84 Years Later Thriving Churches Found Hidden in the Jungle.

The article begins, "In 1912, medical missionary Dr. William Leslie went to live and minister to tribal people in a remote corner of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. After 17 years he returned to the U.S. a discouraged man – believing he failed to make an impact for Christ. He died nine years after his return."

Meanwhile, Christian natives who had heard the gospel from Leslie began a network of small churches that began spreading the gospel throughout the jungles.  Not till 2010 did someone re-enter those jungles to share Jesus only to find He was already there and quite alive in the hearts of many.

Wow. 

The question is the same as always--are we willing to serve the Lord for nothing?  Are we willing to serve Him, however He commands...even if we die thinking ourselves a failure?

For the sake of a world full of the hopeless and lost, I can only hope our answer continues to be yes.



Image: Dr. Leslie's Vanga mission from 1912.

Praying It Forward

My children know mommy demands immediate obedience. And yet they struggle daily to balance the desire to be independent and do it their way with the desire to make mommy happy by obeying her.

Sadly, all too often, I’ve played out the same scenario with my heavenly Father. On a spiritual high, I will become totally engrossed with in-depth Bible study and prayer, rooting myself so deeply by His life-giving river that I feel I cannot possibly be drawn away from His presence again.

And then step by wayward step, I allow the cares of this world to draw me from the water’s edge. Disobedience, apathy, children, friends, job, household chores, spouse, sheer laziness, exhaustion—they all beckon me away from His presence until His Holy Spirit convicts me, sending me humble, repentant, ashamed, parched as I crawl face-down to Him for a long drink.

In Scripture, King Solomon was on one of the biggest spiritual highs of his life—what God had not allowed his father, David, to accomplish, he had been able to complete. After seven years, the temple, the house of the Lord, was finally finished. The Ark of the Covenant was placed in the holies of holies. The people of God were “sacrificing so many sheep and oxen they could not be counted or numbered” (1 Kings 8:5). The glory of the Lord Almighty had descended upon earth to fill the temple with a cloud so thick that “the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud” (1 Kings 8:11).

And yet when Solomon prayed to dedicate the temple, he did not merely rejoice over how close he and Israel were to God at that present moment. Instead, his prayer looked ahead to those times when God’s people would not be walking in obedience to Him:

“When the heavens are shut up and there is no rain, because they have sinned against You, and they pray toward this place and confess Your name and turn from their sin when You afflict them, then hear in heaven and forgive the sin …. And send rain on Your land” (I Kings 8:35-36).

He continued to pray that "When they sin against You (for there is no man who does not sin) and You are angry with them and deliver them to an enemy…if they return to You with all their heart and with all their soul in the land of their enemies who have taken them captive, and pray to You…then hear their prayer and their supplication in heaven Your dwelling place, and maintain their cause, and forgive Your people who have sinned against You and all their transgressions which they have transgressed against You” (I Kings 8: 46, 48-50).

There is a lesson we each must learn from Solomon’s prayer. We must realize our human frailties will eventually draw us from that mountaintop, even if for a short while. Knowing this truth, in those uplifting seasons of indescribable closeness with God, we must pray, asking Him to convict us of our sin during those future times when we will undoubtedly go astray and then forgive us when we truly repent.

This week, start praying in this manner. Pray for God to never give up on you, to never just let you have your own disobedient way, to never let your heart harden to His voice, to never stop hearing your prayers and offering forgiveness, and to never cease prompting you with the Holy Spirit towards a life of complete obedience and a closer walk with Him.

(Photo: Our '05 family trip to Hawaii, looking down from the mountain at the ocean)

Posting here from the archives on this Veterans' Day weekend.