Ode To The Wilderness
“Who is this sweeping in from the desert, leaning on her lover?”
(Song of Songs 8:5 )
The term ‘desert place’ or ‘wilderness’ occurs more than 300 times in the Bible, and often describes a time of lostness, wandering, intensified temptation, drought or difficulty.
Without a doubt, the desert space is a common part of the Christian journey – at least metaphorically, if not physically. In the book of Exodus you can read all about how the Israelites wandered around in a desert for 40 years before they reached their promised land.
And even Jesus himself spent forty days and forty nights in the desert place being tested by the devil, according to the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke.
But even knowing all of that doesn’t make it any easier to be wandering in your own wilderness season, through, challenges, difficulties or heartache. The truth is that the wilderness is not anyone’s favourite season of life because it’s just not the most easy place to be…
My personal wilderness
I’m writing about this because I feel like I’ve been in an extended period of wilderness for almost two years now. It all started when I unexpectedly lost a pregnancy in December 2017.
And since then I feel like I have lived in a fairly continuous state of either trying to conceive again, waiting and worrying to see if a pregnancy would carry, suffering a pregnancy loss, grieving and healing from each loss, or trying to find the courage to dare to hope again.
Two years, and three times I have been round this cycle now… and throughout all of that time I feel like I have got to know the wilderness pretty well.
In the wilderness
It’s really easy to feel wholly negatively about the wilderness seasons we walk through in our lives, isn’t it? But what if we could also see some purpose in it, or even discover the goodness and provision of God there too?
Because the desert isn’t just a barren, dry and lifeless space, as it’s so often depicted to be. It’s also a place for encountering God; a place where He often speaks with greater clarity, or reveals Himself in a new way.
And even though sometimes I’ve found myself wondering why God allows me to go through difficulties, how much growing and changing and listening to God do I really do when everything is going fine? The answer is not very much. Am I on my own here?
The truth is that it’s usually only when I’m wandering around in the wilderness that my desperate need for God is really revealed.
I love this verse from Song of Songs because it’s such a beautiful picture of what the desert experience can do for us; it can create greater dependence in us and a deeper intimacy with our God.
It reminds me that all of the wandering isn’t pointless, if only we will allow God to meet us there. And it lends me fresh hope that when we finally we re-emerge again, it will be having learned to lean into Him in a new and deeper way.
What about you?
Are you going through a wilderness right now too? Maybe the journey seems never ending…
But take heart, stay open and trust that He hasn’t forgotten you and that this barren season of life you are in will not be without a purpose.
If like me you are hoping for a certain and specific outcome at the end of your wilderness season, such as a child, I simply can’t promise you that ending.
But what I can promise you is that as you search for Him right there in the midst of your own personal desert land, he will meet you in this space and provide you there, just as He did for the Israelites in their wilderness wandering all those years ago.
He is the God who sends daily manna from heaven to nourish his people, who brings forth water out of rock to quench their thirst, a cloud to shelter them in the day time, and a pillar of fire to light their way by night. He even parts a sea to protect them from an enemy army…
So today, may you simply discover that same God in your wilderness space, and when you do, ma you lean into him with all of your strength.
And if you’re not in a wilderness space right now, well wouldn’t it be great to learn how to ‘come away’ with Him right now anyway? Why wait until you encounter those hard, empty, desert spaces in your life?