DESERT IS A HOLY PLACE
I haven’t figured it all out. To be honest, it’s still difficult for me as I’m writing to absorb this truth : Desert is a holy place.
Desert is not solely this hostile environment used by conventional wisdom to describe a season of drought and difficulty in one or many areas of our lives.
Desert has nothing to do with the inhospitable region where an uncommon oasis is the only deus ex machina, and where death often remains the most optimistic source of peace.
Deserts are certainly more than infertile places, more than the expression of a struggling moment. It is not only fights and adversities and tears, or punishment. Not sadness, loneliness, desperation and confusion.
Desert is not only where we wait for the breakthrough. It is not where we wait for the next season to happen.
Desert is certainly not the place where we don’t hear God.
Desert is rescue…
“And now, here’s what I’m going to do: I’m going to start all over again. I’m taking her back out into the wilderness where we had our first date, and I’ll court her. I’ll give her bouquets of roses. I’ll turn Heartbreak Valley into Acres of Hope. She’ll respond like she did as a young girl, those days when she was fresh out of Egypt.”
Hosea 2:14–15 MSG
This verse uncovers an unexpected side of the wilderness, which appears as a place of restoration, an operating table, a place of vulnerability, of reckless abandon and exposure. Saying then «I’m going through a desert» should mean : «I’m about to experience God», « I’m about to see God declaring how intense His love is for me » and the suffering that we experience in this season is axiomatically the treatment by which we recover while the desert becomes an instructor, indeed :
“Although He was a Son [who had never been disobedient to the Father], He learned [active, special] obedience through what He suffered.”
HEBREWS 5:8 AMP
Then, suffering forges our identity and character and seals Godly values in our personality. We need to find ourselves in this position of vulnerability and weaknesses. The wildnerness brings the vulnerability by which God power can operate :
“for [My] power is being perfected [and is completed and shows itself most effectively] in [your] weakness.” Therefore, I will all the more gladly boast in my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ [may completely enfold me and] may dwell in me.”
2 CORINTHIANS 12:9 AMP
Yes you read it right … “ I will all the more gladly boast in my weaknesses”. I, by the act of my will, will rejoice in the place of my suffering, in the place of my torture. And this is possible only if I can realise that, the place of my suffering will be the place of my encounter with God.
It is a matter of choice.
Therefore here’s my declaration in the epicenter of uncertainty :
I will choose to press on until I find you, I will come back to you in the wilderness, I will let my heart find your love and your mercy will be my compass.
I know the desert will lead me to you.
If desert is the way to redemption, I will worship harder than ever while I’m walking through it,
Because I understand that i’m here to encounter you, I will sing louder than ever, I will pray like never before.
In the wilderness I’ll declare with all my strength my love for you and my faith in your faithfulness.
I will pray harder than ever !
The desert is an opportunity, it’s a place of intimacy;
Like Jacob at Bethel, i will sleep in the the holy presence of the Living God, I will rest in security in the middle of wilderness.
THE DESERT, IS A HOLY PLACE.
What is your fight ? What desert are you facing now ? anxiety ? addictions ? sickness ? Financial issues ? It doesn’t matter because the outcome is the same. Because no matter what it is, God is coming to meet you straight in the middle of it, He will save you, He will re-established you, He will make you new again, He will restore you’re peace, He will restore your joy and “Your future will be brighter by far than your past” JOB 8:7 ECV.
