I don’t recall who posted it or who said it, but my mind immediately thought of the desert experience that God calls many of His children to. I have found that there seem to be more people who say they want God to reveal truth to them, than those who are actually willing to pay the price of receiving it. For God’s truth to be received, we must be willing to let go of our own. There is no other way. Thus, when someone is faced with a call to the desert, there tends to be varying degrees of willingness vs. reluctance.
For some, it strikes terror into their heart. They fear being alone and they cast a wary eye upon what may be lost and stripped away. In many cases, this is because they don’t truly know the One they claim to know, even though He is their constant companion in the desert, they are inconsolable without human input and guidance. They are lost without their own knowledge and preferred understanding. That is because the desert exposes—it de-clothes us, it dehydrates us, it decreases us. It dwindles away our own substance and leaves only the substance of Christ. And for countless millions that means, for them, there will be little to no substance left at all. When God is ready to teach us to stand upon Him alone, with our own two feet, He uses the desert to expose our degree of trust in men, and in ourselves.
For others, the desert becomes so familiar that they never want to leave. They marvel at their inexplicable longing to be stripped-- to have the grave-clothes stripped away, the scales removed from their eyes-- the dirty rags of our own efforts and righteousness and reasoning to be removed by the hand of God Himself and to stand before Him with no fig leaf between us. To stand before Him and cry out, “If you leave me with nothing, You are enough.” For such as these, an affinity begins to grow for the desert, for the solitude, the quietness. Far away from human banter, far away from the false, futile and fickle—the desert becomes an oasis of tranquility. For all intents and purposes, those such as these would be content to stay in the desert until kingdom come.
In the desert, there are no lanes, no discernible directions. Just a vast nothingness, with the blinding light of the sun as your only point of reference-- the only direction one can perceive is upward. Some are driven mad with the thought of what they might lose, of what will be exposed that has remained hidden for so long, or of facing some unknown thing that has remained hidden that even they themselves were not aware of. They cannot bear the notion of seemingly pointless wandering, or of not accomplishing some measurable headway to a predetermined destination. Yet others, trust that what may seem like wandering is not wandering at all, but divine compelling. For them, even if their wandering is, in fact, wandering, they learn how to be content wandering with their Lord. With the heart of Esther they cry, “If I perish, I perish. Yet I perish holding the hand of my Lord.” No measurable headway needed, just His abiding presence teaching us that He alone is our all in all.
“How wrong are you willing to be?” That is the question that calls to us from the desert-- a place that none of us enter willingly, we are only driven there. Yet for some, they must also be driven out, and when called to emerge, they only do so leaning on their Beloved.
(Song of Solomon 8:5-7) Who is this coming up from the wilderness, leaning on her beloved? … For love is as strong as death, its jealousy as unrelenting as Sheol. Its sparks are fiery flames, the fiercest blaze of all. Mighty waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot sweep it away. If a man were to give all the wealth of his house for love, his offer would be utterly scorned.
(John 3:19-21) And this is the verdict: The Light has come into the world, but men loved the darkness rather than the Light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come into the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever practices the truth comes into the Light, so that it may be seen clearly that what he has done has been accomplished in God.
(1 Cor 3:12-15) If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, or straw, his workmanship will be evident, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will prove the quality of each man’s work. If what he has built survives, he will receive a reward. If it is burned up, he will suffer loss. He himself will be saved, but only as if through the flames.
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