We aren’t really comfortable with the idea that God sent His people out into the wilderness and let them be hungry and lost and tired on purpose. Maybe it was just the divine oversight of an Almighty Being who was busy spinning the planets in their orbits and hadn’t time for a few hundred thousand men, women, and children trying to make their way through the desert. But that isn’t any better at all, and if we cling to the belief that He is a personal and present God, then we are stuck with the inescapable facts recorded in Deuteronomy by Moses so that they would all remember: “God has led you in the wilderness these forty years, that He might humble you…and let you be hungry, and fed you with manna which you did not know…that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone.” (Deuteronomy 8:3-4) Though the lack of faith and the complaining were their own, the consequences were of His choosing and for His purposes.

And although we like to comfort ourselves with the platitude that God only gives us what we can handle, the experience of the desert wanderers is a sharp contradiction, a wake-up call to the self-satisfied– who can handle wandering lost with no home, looking for food and water in the endless wilderness for four decades, watching an entire generation of loved ones die, one by one? It is tragedy unmeasurable, and the only answer is that His purposes for us are so much bigger than we can see, so much more than we want for ourselves. We want to be happy; He wants us to be holy. We want our lives to be good; He wants us to live forever. “…Know in your heart that the Lord your God was disciplining you just as a man disciplines his son.” (8:5) 

But if all we see is the barren loss, we are missing the most important part of the story, the miracle that met them new every day.

Moses makes God’s intentions plain toward His Chosen People, that He wanted to break their stubborn self-reliance, their ideas of what life should be like and what they should have, till all they had was Him. And He Himself fed them with grain from Heaven, and made water spring from rocks, and kept their clothes from wearing out through all those long years, the shoes on their wandering feet whole, watched over them every moment, to show them that He was utterly dependable and faithful. He was Deliverer, Provider, Lover, and King– the I AM who was everything they needed. There in the desert, with the distractions and pleasantries of life stripped away, the choices became simple: Trust or not….Obey or not….Follow or not. Till they weren’t looking at the food or their feet any more at all, but only at Him. Till they could sing with all their hearts, “I am continually with You; You hold my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward You will receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but You? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides You. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” (Psalm 73:23-26)

In the end I wonder if we would ever trade the visible, personal power of God in the desert places for forty years of an unremarkable life of routine and safe pursuits. It’s only a matter of time anyway, because all of this life must be shaken and torn clean away, till we can see it for the temporary Shadowland that it is, if we are going to step into the everlasting Reality of God’s presence.

We aren’t entirely comfortable thinking about a God who leads people into the barren places, who takes away what we know and cling to (even if it be a kind of slavery), who allows grief and pain in our lives to humble us and teach us. But He Is Who He Is and there is a clarity and simplicity in the desert that those who wander can learn to value. And His purposes are always good. The prophets remind us of God’s true-love promises… “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ says the Lord. ‘They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.'” (Jeremiah 29:11)…. “‘Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed,
yet My unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor My covenant of peace be removed,’  says the Lord, who has compassion on you.” (Isaiah 54:10)

May all our wanderings lead us straight to God.

“This means that all of creation will be shaken and removed, so that only unshakable things will remain. Since we are receiving a Kingdom that is unshakable, let us be thankful and please God by worshiping him with holy fear and awe.” (Hebrews 12:27-28)

“What if Your blessings come through raindrops?
What if Your healing comes through tears?
What if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near?
What if my greatest disappointments,
Or the aching of this life, 
Is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can’t satisfy?
What if trials of this life– the rain, the storms, the hardest nights–
Are Your mercies in disguise?”
(Blessings, Laura Story)

Deuteronomy 8:2-3

I usually know what is going on inside me. And if I don’t, the work of finding the right words helps me to understand.

Seems like lately whenever I sit down to write there are too many feelings, words tangled up inside pushing to get out in no particular order and much too raw-edged to share. So I end up staring at the screen and writing nothing. Not that I feel the need to show something better, to hide what’s going on inside behind a row of properly yellow ducks. Just this inability to sort through the jumble to find the words, right now, and waiting for something to change.

For me, writing has always been a way to process life– to attach words to emotions and perceptions gives them shape, orders them into patterns that reveal meaning, connects them to bigger concepts and ideas. But it is the processing that is getting stuck. And I don’t even know what I need; can’t put a finger on whether the difficulty is a matter of too much, or not enough, the wrong direction, or the wrong thing altogether…maybe we are all like that at times. Sleeping Beauty lying unaware in a tower for a hundred years, till the Prince comes to awaken her.

But You know my heart, Lord, and You know what I need. And when I am at a loss for words You promised to pray for me, Your Spirit helping me, Everlasting Arms to carry me. And in this again You stoop to my weakness, that You would groan without words for my own wordless needs. “Test me, LORD, and try me, examine my heart and my mind; for I have always been mindful of your unfailing love and have lived in reliance on your faithfulness.” (Psalm 26:2-3) You know my days and You know the change I am waiting for, even though I do not. And somehow I feel sure that when I awake, it will be to the sight of Your unfailing love.

“In death, In life, I’m confident and
covered by the power of Your great love
My debt is paid, there’s nothing that can
separate my heart from Your great love…”
(One Thing Remains, Jesus Culture)

“In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.” (Romans 8:26-27)

I’m listening to her talk as we all work out this morning, these good women from various church backgrounds, except that I happen to know her faith is a personal one. “I told God that whatever He decides is fine with me,” she says quietly. “I know He will do what’s best.” The others shake their heads in sympathy; I slant a smile for her courage, small offering to a wife nursing a second husband through cancer. She looks tired today, but she is here to exercise. The feet keep moving and voices intermingle with the upbeat music, and she is speaking her list of thanksgiving: an air conditioner in the apartment, a good breakfast, a daughter coming to visit for the holiday…

It seems hard to me that God would ask her to go through this loss again– hasn’t she suffered enough? Learned enough? The others are still talking, her praises still threading through, and when she says she will stay and take care of him herself, whatever it takes, I think maybe this isn’t about her learning  or growing anything.  Maybe it’s about her giving what she has already learned– blessing two men with her faithful love and willing service, sharing her faith and courage with these watching friends. And she is still offering up her reasons to praise God, all her reasons to hope and keep on going because He is with her: some days are almost pain-free, a new pill to help with nausea, God hears our prayers…

My heart can’t help but add to her list of reasons, because if she can praise where she is, how can the rest of us not? …strawberry sundaes, a night of rest, pink and purple flowers spilling out of a big pot, fireworks, coffee in the morning air, school loans paid off, meaningful work to do… This remembering is like breathing for our souls– drawing in acknowledgement of the Giver and pouring out thanksgiving– a litany of everyday praise that battles against depression and worry and fear. This choice to give thanks is a kind of spiritual discipline, the exercise that moves our hearts close to the Father in childlike trust, our minds to bow before the Creator. It is grace you can learn to see in the desert places: the sun and rain that fall on everyone, and daily bread. “The sun comes up, it’s a new day dawning; It’s time to sing Your song again. Whatever may pass, and whatever lies before me, Let me be singing when the evening comes….” (Matt Redman)

When I stop to stretch, change clothes and head out for the day, she waves goodbye from out on the floor, and I think how she shines without even knowing it, and how praise transfigures the most difficult things. And how we could spend our whole lives and not run out of reasons to give thanks.

“Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all his benefits…. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed– he remembers that we are dust.” (Psalm 103:2, 10-14)

“You’re rich in love, and You’re slow to anger,
Your name is great, and Your heart is kind;
For all Your goodness I will keep on singing,
Ten thousand reasons for my heart to find.

Bless the Lord, O my soul,
O my soul;
Worship His holy name.
Sing like never before,
O my soul;
I’ll worship Your holy name”
(10,000 Reasons, Matt Redman)

Sometimes God’s miracles are as quiet as kind words and willing hearts. No show or noise, or mighty rushing power. Just the gentle whisper that says He hears me and will provide. Not abundance maybe, but enough for the day. It is enough. Like an old friend used to say, “Some days the miracle is to walk and not faint.”
“…but those who hope in the Lord
    will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
    they will run and not grow weary,
    they will walk and not be faint.” (Isaiah 40:31)

You’d think I would have learned by now that pushing things under doesn’t erase them, just makes it easier to keep going for the time being. But that undercurrent has a way of finding an outlet somehow, pressure building till it has enough force to break through any crack into broad daylight, break any heart with the weight of it all. Humpty-Dumpty had a great fall, and it may just have been the least little breath that eventually pushed him over into all those pieces.

And when the heart cracks wide open, it’s easy enough to look back and see the griefs pushed under, the problems with no solutions, the unexpected that pours in like rain, late nights and daily nuisances, and not near enough laughter. Easy too to name the things you have used to mute the sound of your soul, the outlets (most of them good) for that energy… did I really think it would all dissipate with time? Think I could carry all this brokenness around inside myself without running headlong to the Burden-Bearer, the Healer of my soul? At the time it felt like survival, but looking back it seems more like blind Self-sufficiency, a base-line assumption that I have to keep going and carrying it all because there isn’t any alternative. Or maybe just a giving up– resignation that this is all there is so you may as well get used to it. Really?  I do know better than this, and I sorrow again at how easy it is to lose sight of what is True.

It’s part of the fog of this world, the blindness that we breathe in, look through, hear every day…the spiritual grime that blankets creation like the worst kind of pollution. I need to be reminded often and strongly that Jesus is at work here, re-creating everything, making beautiful things out of all this dust. That He really is growing us to look like Himself… wiping our eyes clear of the muck so we can see Light and opening up ears to hear His quiet whispers… changing willful hearts to obey, strengthening weak bodies to serve. I need to take time to tell Him everything and to listen to what He tells me, because it takes time for Truth to sink down deep and do its healing work.

Help me see You. Help me find You with all these pieces.

“All this earth–
Could all that is lost ever be found?
Could a garden come up from this
Ground at all?

All around,
Hope is springing up from this old ground;
Out of chaos life is being 
Found in You.
You make beautiful things…”
(Beautiful Things, Gungor)

On a day when I feel lost, playing hide-and-seek with Truth and wondering who I am, the words to the simple song we sang on Sunday come to mind: “Oh the gravity of You, brings my soul unto its knees; I will never be the same– I am lost and found in You…” (Alabaster, Rend Collective Experiment). That’s what I need, to be grounded in Someone infinitely strong and certain; I feel it more some days than others, because circumstances can take you off course without a moment’s notice and emotions can blow and batter worse than a storm. Gravity is what I need exactly, in every sense of the word, to keep my heart in one piece.  The giant almighty Center holding everything in its place. The awesome silent solemnity of being in God’s presence. Let me lose my Self in You… find who I am in You.

I love Francis Thompson’s classic poem The Hound of Heaven, the way he pictures God chasing him relentlessly through all the days of his life, Love never giving up until his soul gave up running and was Home and safe. A much-needed message came to my inbox yesterday, a sister-writer reminding me that God does not only run after the fleeing, but He also runs after the floundering. “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me”— chasing me, pursuing me, hunting me– “all the days of my life,” because I belong to the Good Shepherd.

So on days like this, when I can’t see anything clearly, if all I have is the faintest whisper… “find me”…that is enough of a prayer, because the One who leads me on, who is the Beginning and the End of all things, will never stop hunting me down with His goodness. Pursue me with mercy…find me…draw me to Yourself and set my feet on solid ground.

“When I said, ‘My foot is slipping,’ your unfailing love, Lord, supported me.
 When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought me joy.” (Psalm 94:18-19)

“All which I took from thee, I did’st but take,
Not for thy harms,
But just that thou might’st seek it in my arms.
All which thy child’s mistake fancies as lost,
I have stored for thee at Home.” (The Hound of Heaven, Francis Thompson)