Deserts
are largely uninhabited for a reason.
Why live in the dry heat of a barren, inhospitable land when the world
is full of breathtaking mountains, lush valleys, and calming seas? Yet, spiritually, we sometimes choose to
remain with our feet planted in the sand, our parched throat drawing in the
dusty air, and our skin shriveling up in the relentless rays of the sun. We may not have arrived in the desert by our
own desire (whether as a result of sin or of difficult circumstances outside
our control), but that doesn’t mean we are hopelessly trapped there. So, why do we still act paralyzed?
For
most of the summer, I have been in the book of Numbers. The wilderness was always part of God’s plan
to take Israel into the promised land.
Their journey was never going to be an easy one, but they made it much
harder on themselves by the choices they made.
As I read, I tried to choose one or two main ideas from each passage to
write down in my journal. Looking back
over my notes, three themes emerged that I think are key to thriving through
our spiritual wildernesses and moving on from them.
1. Don’t Complain
Israel
complained repeatedly through their whole wilderness experience. Their loud discontent did little to benefit
them. Instead, it roused God’s anger and
frustrated their leader (Moses) to the point that he wanted God to end his
life. Further, it caused them to forget
what God had already done for them, fed their ungratefulness, and led to more
heartache and headache than any temporary satisfaction they received. Similarly, our complaints make us ungrateful
for what God has already done, they make us intolerable to those around us, and
they blind us from the ways God is working on our behalf. The Scriptures are also clear that while
Jesus did indeed take the punishment for our sin, God still disciplines His
children. He loves us too much to let us
grow up to be spoiled brats, and a complaining attitude is not something He
allows to go unchecked. No one leaves
their desert on the wheels of complaint without crashing and burning along the
way.
2. Believe
In spite of all
the miraculous ways the people of Israel had seen God work in rescuing them out
of Egypt, they constantly doubted His character, His promises, and His ways in
the wilderness. God continued to be
faithful even when they were faithless, but they tested His boundaries more
zealously than a three-year-old. Their
unbelief, coupled with fear, ultimately led to their stay in the wilderness
being extended by another forty years.
We get stuck when we don’t believe God, and who knows how often we have
delayed or missed out on His blessings because of our stubborn unbelief.
3. Obey
When we stop
believing God, disobedience is inevitable.
We were all created to believe in something, and when the rightful
object of that belief is displaced, we start pursuing all sorts of other
avenues to fill that void. Israel was
constantly wandering away from the one true God by worshipping Him in ways that
He did not ask or by worshipping other gods entirely. Their disobedience resulted in so much
destruction, pain, and death. Our hearts
are easily led away from God, even when we have seen the truth of His goodness
and His righteousness. Obedience is a
choice we must make in every single moment as we continue to believe God in the
face of our driest deserts.
A
common response to reading about the Israelites is baffled
self-righteousness. How could they turn
away so many times from the God who set them free? How could they even dream of being unfaithful
to Him? Of course, we would have made
the right choices if we were in their shoes.
But, don’t we make those same choices today? Our descent into the sins of complaint,
disbelief, and disobedience might look different, but it is just as real and
baffling, if not more so.
We have known
the love of our Savior in a way that the Israelites were not yet privileged to
see. Israel saw God’s deliverance from
Egypt, but we have seen our deliverance from the eternal punishment and present
power of sin in our lives through Jesus’s death and resurrection. The Source of living water resides inside of
us (Jn. 7:37-39). In the bleakest
wastelands, we have no reason to wilt because we already have been given
everything we need to flourish and thrive.
We need only to choose to listen to Him.
If we stop complaining long enough to turn our eyes away from our own
misery and self-pity, believe that God will fulfill His promises on the basis
of His good character, and obey Him as His Spirit and Word guide us in the way
that He made this world to work, we can be the oases in a cracked, broken
world. Once we realize that He is all we
need, we can live abundantly regardless of whether we find ourselves in the
desert or the promised land.