To Leave The Wilderness
Deuteronomy 8:
And you shall remember that the Lord your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.
So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord.
Your garments did not wear out on you, nor did your foot swell these forty years.
For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, that flow out of valleys and hills…
I often find myself in the book of Deuteronomy. If you ever don’t know where to read, head for Deuteronomy (first half) or Isaiah (chapter 35 and on). So much low-hanging fruit in those books. Deuteronomy walks us alongside the children of Israel in the final stretches of their wilderness journey, when things are about to change forever, but they’re not quite inhabiting the Promise Land. It’s amazing how often passages about the “wilderness” are applicable to my life. I mean, how many wildernesses can one person go through!
But that’s just it. Life in the Lord is one series of walking from the land of affliction (i.e. Egypt) to the Promise land after another–until that day that we enter the eternity of promise with Him and there are no more tears, no more sorrow, and we are overcome with gratitude and awe over and over and over again (all while feasting–can I get an amen on the epic amounts of feasting!!!). We aren’t just walking through one wilderness. Every trial, every hurt, every bondage, every repetitive temptation, every loss–every one is a wilderness journey of its own. Sometimes I might be in more than one overlapping wilderness journey at a time–thank goodness the Lord is an excellent multi-tasker.
So, at any given time, my heart or my circumstances are in a wilderness or the land of affliction. The Lord means to rescue and heal and deliver and change Every. Single. One. The very last verse in Ezekiel says “…and the name of the city from that day shall be: THE LORD IS THERE” (Ezekiel 48:35b). I just imagine the Lord walking through the land of my life touching and healing every place moment by moment, leaving that sign in every place He touches–”THE LORD IS THERE.” No more of you, pain. No more from you, enemy. No more chains, sin. The Lord lives there now.
There was a time in the not too distant past that I was in quite a wilderness. Several overlapping wildernesses, to be honest. A heart wilderness on the one hand, and a practical circumstantial wilderness on the other. And though this was not my first rodeo in the wilderness, not the first time I had seen the Lord work MIRACLES on my behalf, seen Him do what I knew He COULD do but wasn’t sure He WOULD do, it’s amazing how hard it is to trust the Lord with the problem in front of me. Soooooo much easier to trust Him with the issues He’s already solved, with the problem in front of someone else, with the conceptual might-happen-but-not-really-happening issue. But the one in front of me? I’d say I go about 50-50 on my trust stats. Nobody’s trying to draft me onto their faith team with those numbers.
It’s not that I don’t trust Him. I really really do. And I have learned to lay down my worry and my fear and my trust and my situation. Like I seriously throw down. So maybe trust is not the right word for it. It’s more that I have other voices I tend to also trust. Sometimes the Lord is not my only counselor.
It’s not like I TRY to listen to other voices besides the Lord’s. Consciously, the Lord’s voice is the one I’m diligently looking for, faithfully searching for, even desperate for. But these other voices, they are so “natural” to me, so “normal,” and can sneak in under the guise of being “true.” If I outlined for you the details of my circumstances, both practically and emotionally, anyone in their right mind would say I had legit reason to be concerned, to be downtrodden, to have a hard time lifting my head. Because it wasn’t just that it was a deep and rugged wilderness. It had been a long, long time in the same wilderness. A long, long time of believing the Lord’s goodness would follow me and “catch up to me” in the land of the almost-dead-but-still-living. A long, long time of trusting Him and believing Him only to have nothing change. Nothing. A long, long time of things looking like they’re about to change, only to crash to the rocks again. A long, long time of the waves of hopelessness and doubt knocking me down from behind time and time again.
We all have those things that we turn to in our hearts when things do not go well. It could be fear–worrying about every possible outcome and trying to avoid ALL the things that could, and probably will, go wrong. It could be divination–trying to map out all the paths and figure out in advance how we’ll navigate whatever could happen (lots of “what-if’s”). It could be control–trying to MAKE everything and everyone do what you think needs to be done. It could be jealousy–looking at how things are going for everyone else and wanting that to be yours. It could be any number of voices that turn our eyes from trusting and believing and waiting on the Lord.
In this situation, self-pity was my “other” counselor. Self-pity is often my counselor-of choice. It’s subtle. Because again, if you heard all my details, you’d probably have pity on me. I was “deserving” of pity. I would walk around feeling a little bit sorry for myself–not so much that you could identify the self-pity, just enough to make sure the Lord knew that I was “still” in that wilderness. “Still” in that same place. “Still” waiting for Him to “come through.” But I also would make comments here and there so that others would also “know” my situation. That they would have pity on me and perhaps do something for me to help me.
Help is nice. Friends are awesome. And I don’t want to live in a spot of isolation or act like everything’s fine when it’s not. But this was different. This was wanting them to know SO THAT they would do something for me. Wanting people to know that I was “still” in that spot so they would maybe think of me and do something that I wanted done but would be totes inapprop’s to ask. Because, after all, God wasn’t doing it. He wasn’t putting me on anybody’s heart, so I just took the liberty of putting myself on other people’s hearts.
But never so obvious or noticeable as that. That I would have repented of on the spot and put my trust right back in the Lord. It was more of a subtle attitude that cocooned the rest of my trusting heart. More of a looking-out-for-myself-just-in-case-the-Lord-doesn’t-ever-come-through kind of feeling.
But oh the Lord. He is so kind. While I was earnestly desperately seeking His voice, doing my conscious best to put my trust in Him, not in any way ignoring Him, He spoke to me. I was hoping for words of comfort and compassion, words of change and promise. The words He gave me were of comfort and compassion and…correction.
“For the Lord your God has blessed you in all the work of your hand. He knows your trudging through this great wilderness. These forty years the Lord your God has been with you; you have lacked nothing.” (Deuteronomy 2:7)
The first was this beautiful acknowledgement from the Lord of my “trudging.” He knew I was in a “great wilderness,” far greater than I could reconcile in my heart. I could feel this tender compassion, the Lord’s great mercy pouring into my heart that He knew the pain of it, He knew the agony of waiting, He knew the heartache of the seemingly endless nothingness.
But also, this reminder that for the entire time, I in all honesty had “lacked nothing.” He had been with me. And though there was plenty I had WANTED to be different, plenty I had WANTED to be changed, plenty I had WANTED to be added to me, if I looked back I could see that everything I really wanted had been given to me. As Moses describes in Deuteronomy 8, He supplied me in ways I couldn’t have even known to want (manna), and my life was not marked in such a way that I could not recover (my garments did not wear out). I did not bear the scars of irrecoverable loss (my feet did not swell). I was flooded with gratitude and a knowledge that being thankful for all the Lord HAD DONE and HAD BEEN would not only guard my heart, but would also mark the path into the Promise Land (i.e. OUT of the wilderness).
“So Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord.”(Deuteronomy 34:5)
And then this second verse, where I knew that I knew that I knew that the Lord was saying to me, “If you want to enter the Promise Land, then you cannot take self-pity with you. Your self-pity MUST DIE.” Whew! Talk about pulling no punches! I get goose bumps every time I remember it (like the hyenas tormenting each other saying the name of “Mufassa” and kind of freaking out every time, but then wanting to “do it again”). It stopped me in my tracks. I didn’t even realize I had self-pity, but I immediately knew and saw it right there. Trying to act like it was my friend, my helper, my counselor. Pffft. Self-pity canNOT accompany me into my Promise Land. It must die. And the way to kill it? Gratitude for what the Lord HAS DONE and HAS BEEN and WILL BE.
After all, He is the God who “delivered us from so great a death, and does deliver us; in whom we trust that He will still deliver us” (2 Corinthians 1:10). HAS delivered. IS delivering. WILL. YET. DELIVER. US.
I remember I was counseling this young gal who had been dating this guy for a while, and she was super hoping to be engaged to him, and she had grown weary of waiting and was just in torment wondering what in the world was going to happen, bemoaning her situation. Truth be told, it had been a little up and down, in and out, so her uncertainty and angst was a bit warranted. But she was really really upset. Not angry, just sad and uncertain and I would say a little bit of self-pity. Well, because my husband and I were also counseling the young man, we happened to know that he was going to ask her to marry him like any second–he was just doing an excellent acting job. But since she didn’t know what he was up to, she just had her circumstances to focus on, and those were kind of depressing.
Well, I knew we couldn’t have her in self-pity land when he came to ask her to marry him. That would ruin it for them and she would feel so terrible! So instead of comforting her like she expected me to (and I expected me to, also!), I basically Mom-voiced her and told her to snap out of it, stop feeling sorry for herself, and trust the Lord. Enjoy dating. Stop putting so much pressure on him and you and time. I still remember her tear-streaked face, eyes getting wider and wider, nodding and trying to breathe and pull it together because she was so shocked at my voice. But I just knew. I knew it would taint the beginning of this beautiful thing she’d been longing for. I knew it would take from the gift about to be given to her.
Kind of the same here. When I don’t know what the Lord is up to, it’s easy to focus on the things I can see, the things I can imagine, the things I think I know. But those things are depressing. Always. And it is just true that the Lord is ALWAYS up to something on my behalf. ALWAYS working all things together FOR. MY. GOOD. Always redeeming the times. Always healing, planning, leading, whispering, recovering, teaching, correcting, comforting, promising, fulfilling… He is only One who has any idea what is actually going on. He is the only One worth trusting.
He alone is my Deliverer. He alone is my Rock. He alone is my Safety. He alone is my Provision. He alone is my Comfort. He alone is my Counselor. Wonderful God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace… He alone is the great I AM, being all the things I have ever needed, currently need and will ever need. He. So I once again put my eyes on Him, though the storm rage (and I complain the whole way through), though the mountains fall (and I scream and yell and hate every second of it), though the waters rise (and I am nearly drowned). My eyes on Him. The Author of my faith, the answer to my faith, the reason for my faith, the Finisher of my faith. I have only faith to bring, and He is all the other things.
Maybe you have another “counselor” that you (even inadvertently) turn to when life gets rough and tumble. Maybe you are on the cusp of your promise land and He desperately wants to take you across that boundary, but can’t bring all your death-dealing groupies with you.
Maybe you’re a little too focused on the circumstances that you see, the paths you think you know, and you’ve forgotten that God is working even now on your behalf.
Maybe you have a just-in-case-God-doesn’t-do-me-good door open just a crack.
Whatever it is, put it down. Put your eyes on Him. Put your faith once again in the Great I AM. Lift your eyes up to the hills and see that He hovers over you, even in the wilderness. He knows your trudging. He knows it is hard and impossible and painful and hurts you. He hurts for you. But He is with you. You lack nothing. And He is leading you to a good, good land where the memory of this wilderness will not leave any scars…
“He found him in a desert land And in the wasteland, a howling wilderness; He encircled him, He instructed him, He kept him as the apple of His eye.
“As an eagle stirs up its nest, Hovers over its young, Spreading out its wings, taking them up, Carrying them on its wings,“So the Lord alone led him, And there was no foreign god with him.”
(Deuteronomy 32:10-12)
