DESERT: PLACE OF PUNISHMENT OR PROMISE

“Therefore I am now going to allure her;  I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her.”  Hosea 2: 14

The thought of spending time in a desert makes the most adventurous person a little wary.  It’s made for insects and reptiles, not human beings.  If you’re going to hike there, better have good boots, thick socks, and plenty of food and water.  The heat can be brutal, shade trees hard to find.

        Spiritual deserts feel just as treacherous.  Though we think we might have been prepared for the sense of isolation, it still takes us by brute force.  Emotions are raw.  Survival is a moment-by-moment agenda, and it seems like God has retreated.

        Yet, having survived a few deserts in my lifetime, I can look back and tell you how life changing they were.  At the time, it was comforting to know that God had given wilderness experiences to great men and women of faith.  Moses was sent to the backside of the wilderness and it was there that God shaped him into one of the greatest leaders in history.  Esther must have felt she’d been sent into banishment before she ever discovered that her desert was the door to her spiritual destiny.  David learned the art of shepherding in the barren hills of Judea and Jesus, before he ever entered public ministry, was led into the desert by His Father for forty days.

          Lest I think that deserts are places of punishment, I consider today’s scripture.  God doesn’t send me away to a desert, but allures me there.  It’s a place He takes pleasure in because it holds the promise of intimacy with His beloved.  Away from the noise of busy life, He will speak tenderly to me and groom me for what is ahead.

I’m listening.  You are my Lover.  Speak to me.  Amen