Red sand cliffs were towering in distance. The sun had risen only a few hours earlier and but now the heat was already becoming unbearable. My crew was working on a bridge replacement in Zion National Park, Utah and for sure today was going to be another scorcher. The river bed below was bone dry and full of washed in sand from the last flash flood and in fact as far as the eye could see was hot and dry desert. Sand and more sand.
Last night my dreams were full of that desert or someplace very much like it. There was something about sand that kept coming back over and over. When I awoke this morning and I was in my time of devotion and prayer it hit me that God’s people are always tested in the hot sands of the desert. But why was this so important that I spent a whole night dreaming about it?
I thought again about my days of working in the desert throughout the southwest. But it was funny that the one place I associated with the dreams was Zion and I thought that it was apropos. Zion a name that has become synonymous with God’s land and His people. The people who were tested in the desert.
As I gathered more thoughts, it struck me that God leads every believer, including me, into desert at one time or another. Each one of us have our desert experience. We don’t always recognize them as such but if we admit it, there have been times where our spiritual waters have gone as dry as any sandy and arid place we can imagine. Maybe through illness, unexplainable death, or woes in this world of pain and sin. The question then became is there any hope and how can we find it?
Well one thing for sure in the Bible God does test His people in the desert. Look at Moses, 40 years he was there before God shows up in a burning bush and changes his life again. Can you imagine 40 years of desert experience. But it did not end there. He has another 40 years with a stiff-necked people wandering again in the desert. God testing and purging His people. But wait, we can find hope even here. The wonderful thing we learn as we read the books of Exodus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, and Leviticus that even in testing God is protecting, feeding, and saving. Maybe that’s another thing to know about the desert experience. That even when we feel alone, were not.
I think we see this best shown in Jesus’s desert experience. This time it is 40 days. But that is 40 days without food or water. Think of it, no water….no food. He had to know and trust He was not alone, He had to. Because when those days were ending and Satan attacks He turns to His source of strength, His Father and the Word and answers every temptation with a quote from that Word.
Satan: “If you are the Son of God tell these stones to become bread…” Jesus: “It is written, ‘Man shall not live on bread alone.’” Satan after taking Jesus on a mountain top: “I will give you all this, just worship me…” Jesus: “Worship the Lord you God and serve Him only.” Satan taking Jesus to the top of the temple, “Throw yourself down.” Now he tries quoting Scripture, “….angels, they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone. “But Jesus has the answer: “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.” (paraphrased from Luke 4: 1-13)
You see it? Jesus shows us how we can claim victory over the sands of trials and the dry depths of spiritual deserts. Trust in God and trust in His Word. And on top of that He offers us one thing more, Trust in Him. He has been to the desert, the cross. He has overcome it all. Maybe what we should do is remember His words as He sat next that well in the mid-day heat in the desert of Samaria. “…whoever drinks of the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (John 4:14) Water and life in a dry place!
So, this morning I woke up thinking of the desert sands and contemplating my own desert experiences. But in the last couple of hours I have been blessed to see whenever I have been dry and have turned to Him, I have been replenished with those living waters, the sands of despair have been washed away.
Ok maybe I have over done it with desert references this morning, but even in the heat of this Georgia day, I am feeling a lot cooler. How about you?
Blessings John
5/29/17
The desert experience…
