Abundant Living in an Arid Land

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.