Alone in the Wilderness

When we walk into the wilderness moments of our lives, there is nothing to sustain the soul.   There is no library shelf full of books on the inner life to guide us.  There is no insightful preacher to whom we can listen.  There are no resources.  There is nothing.  We may hurry to these familiar things which have given us strength in the ordinary days, but when the dry and empty wilderness fills every part of our inner being, these things have little value.  We do not want another devotional book, or another Christian song.  We only want the One for whom our soul longs and that is God.

 

The truth is we come to those moments when only God can satisfy.  Our soul hungers longs for what it seemingly does not have.  Our soul thirsts for what seems to be lost in a place that can never be uncovered.  The real hunger and thirst of the soul is not for the things of the past which have sustained us in our walk with God, but God Himself.  Nothing will quench the thirst, or satisfy the hunger except God. 

It is the loss of God, or at least, what seems to be the loss of God which fills our soul as we fearfully tread wilderness ground.  There is something within us that knows it has happened.  It as if our heart has been broken by the Words spoken first to the Garden of Eden couple, "What is this that you have done?"  (Genesis 3:13)   In those moments of our own self created brokenness, we dare to breathe those words of the Psalmist, "As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God."  (Psalm 42:1)   In the spiritual wilderness where the soul is broken, we long for His presence, we weep the bitter tears of confession, and we trust in the grace and mercy of God.