The Terrifying Wildnerness: How God Teaches Us to Trust

 

The great and terrifying wilderness of Olympic National Park, where you can hike for days without seeing anyone.

¹⁹ “Then, just as the Lord our God commanded us, we left Mount Sinai and traveled through the great and terrifying wilderness, as you yourselves remember, and headed toward the hill country of the Amorites.  Deuteronomy 1:19 (NLT)

Walking through life as a follower of Jesus is very hard at times.  Some teachers out there would say that His deepest desire for you and me is that we be rich, or that we be successful, or that we have everything in life that we want.  In His goodness, often we do receive those things, but these are not the things that Jesus actually wants for us.  He has a larger goal for you and me that I will talk about here.  Prosperity in our lives could be seen as the icing on the cake, but it most certainly is not the cake.

Recently we have gone through a lot of emotional difficulty as a family as we prepare to move back to Texas to start full-time ministry.  The initial wave of good feelings about the future have given way to a long period of waiting, which has given way to an extended period of saying goodbye to a lot of people that we love and care about.  Daily it seems we have had to say goodbye to someone, answer more questions about why we are going, and then in the evening deal with the emotions as a family since each of us have had a similar experience.  The result has been a rising tide of sorrow and a sense of loss, with little time to grapple with it personally until waking up the next day to deal with it all over again.  That "why" question coming from others has gradually developed into a "why" question in my own heart.  Why, God, does it have to be so hard?  Why does it have to hurt so much?

On top of that we have dealt personally and emotionally with countless people coming to see our house yet not a demonstrate a shred of real interest.  We have had people come to see it multiple times who have indicated that they'd make an offer on it, yet they and the offer disappeared in the wind.  We've had numerous people come to see it who apparently just wanted to look at a pretty house, displacing our family over and over again so they could get a tour.  And still nothing happens, and inside of me the dad and husband screams that we still are seemingly unable to find a place of our own in Texas until this place is moved!  God, why are you doing this?  Why do we have to go through this?  Is there not an easier way?

Lately God has had me take a lot of walks around our neighborhood to just talk with Him.  And in the mornings He has had me read a lot from scripture that directly relates to our situation.  On our walks, I have started with very formal prayers to Him only to be interrupted by his gentle prompting of "just talk to me Paul."  In my reading, instead of going from chapter to chapter in the Bible, He has had me fixate on individual verses that have shown me that He is aware of my situation and that He is with us.  I'm discovering as I spend more time with God that that is His way.  While most of my life I have expected and deserved for him to come to me with a club, He instead comes to me with a whisper, an arm around my shoulder, and a listening ear.

What it looked like for Israel

When Israel was told to move on from Egypt, they had been in slavery for 400 years.  Conditions were not good and many of them were beaten and worked to death.  They were provided food and shelter, but life was about working for their slave masters who had developed a fearful attitude toward their people.  In steps Moses, who God had directed to go talk to Pharaoh, and when Moses obeyed things got tougher for the Israelites and for Moses.  Eventually Pharaoh relented and let the Israelites go, but they were then chased through the wilderness and had their backs to the sea and their fronts confronted by the world's most powerful army.  After they were improbably delivered through the sea, they wandered in the desert and eventually made it to the brink of the Promised Land.  Instead of taking immediate possession of it, they sent in spies, who discouraged the people about it instead of spurring them on, and they had to wander in the desert for 40 more years before they could actually enter the land.

Along the journey of Israel, I want you to see what they faced.  Their initial state in Egypt was bad, but when they obeyed God things got worse and worse and worse.  When they seemingly were released from it all, they were placed into an impossible and inescapable situation by the Red Sea and had gone from worse to...terrifying.  When they were delivered from that situation, they had to wander through the "great and terrifying wilderness."

Having spent a lot of time backcountry camping, the phrase "great and terrifying wilderness" has a lot of meaning for me.  When you are in the wilderness it can be a terrifying experience simply because you are there.  You bring in your own food in your pack but rely on the land for your water.  Last year, in fact, I went on an extended stretch of a hike where we could find no water, and dread grew so much that I eventually couldn't see anything around me except the lack of water.  The Israelites were crossing a desert land that had no water at all and certainly was a far cry from being farmland.  There was no food and no water, and they likely saw in all directions an arid landscape filled with scrubby plants, absolutely desolate.  There were not bubbling pools nearby.  Instead it is likely they had to walk by many dried up pools, sun-baked and cracked, providing the memory of water but not the refreshment of it.  An empty horizon in the wilderness can also drain you of hope.  Yet they were not alone during that time, although they seemingly forgot about that.

God had purpose in all of this for the Israelites just as He has purpose for you and me.  Since there was no food for the people, God had to provide it Himself, and provide He did.  But he only provided what they needed for that day in the form of Manna, which covered the ground like dew in the morning.  They could collect it when they woke up, but if they stored extra up it would rot.  At the end of each day they had nothing left.  When they needed water which was always unavailable, they were provided it from a rock.  The need was there, God provided in the moment, and then they would have to move on to another place that had no water.  

What's the point?

Jesus said that we are worth more than many sparrows, yet it is unlikely that even sparrows could last in the great and terrifying wilderness.  So when He leads us into this type of place, what does it all mean?  What is the point?  

In the wilderness places of life we are able to survive because God provides. We improbably make it through the land because of God's provision.  We live another day because He sustains us in the wilderness.  And in it all, we meet God on a whole new level.  We see that He cares deeply, so deeply in fact that He is willing to plunge us down an illogical path that is fraught with fear and danger and the scent of death so that we will know Him more.  That is what he wants.  Not prosperity, though He gives it, nor health, though He allows that, nor success, though He may provide even that.  He wants us to know Him as we would know a best friend or a spouse or someone we might call a "soul mate."  He is so deeply interested in us, so full of compassion for our condition and need of a Savior, so fully committed to our overall good, so full of love for us as if we were the only people on the entire earth.  And because of this, He knows that the path should lead through the wilderness.

His great purpose for us is this:  that we would walk in fellowship with Him and know Him and His ways and love him deeply.  That's it.  That's the thing.  And in knowing Him better we can follow Him better into deeper and darker paths where there is no light save the light He gives off in us.  His plan is that we would follow Him even if there is no path because walking with Him like this means we are wholly with Him.  In this, as He refines, whittles, and shapes you and me, His greatest work is done.  We are provided treatment for the incurable disease of sin, and are better prepared to "go make disciples of all men."

I'm not sure what "great and terrifying wilderness" God has you walking through right now.  You or someone you love may be dealing with health questions, or it could be something going on at work or in your church.  Perhaps your wilderness is a financial one that doesn't make sense or that God has asked you to do something that just doesn't make a lot of sense.  You can recognize your wilderness by its great and terrifying qualities, giving the appearance of something that could and should be avoided if there is a better way that God could simply provide.  Natural questions come up during those times of your life like "why this?" and "isn't there a different way you could take me, God?"  

You are not meant to deal with those things alone.  There is not some cosmic puzzle you are supposed to figure out that will make it all better.  Yes, God has given you an intellect for a reason, but He has also designed you with a God-sized hole in the middle, and the purpose of making you strike out into this wilderness has more to do with that hole in you than some unnamed or undiscovered strategy.  God wants you and me to rely, depend, and surrender to His ways during these times of our life.  That means you and I must spend more time with him just talking as friends, reading our Bible and considering what it is telling us, walking by ourselves and contemplating the situations, and maybe even talking to a mentor who has a deep relationship with the Lord.  

Instead of leaning away from the pain and the trials and desperately flailing our arms to try to save ourselves, we should be still and lean toward Jesus.  The wilderness we are in may not suddenly make sense, but as we relate to Jesus by spending more time with Him, we realize it doesn't have to make sense.  We realize that Jesus is absolutely trustworthy and is absolutely the greatest love we could ever have.   We then know Jesus better than we did before, which was the point all along.

Who is like the Lord?