The Blessing of Wilderness

What would a blog post (finally) by me be without a little Hebrew, a sort-of lesson, and a lot of love? So here goes.

As these next few months hit us in all their challenging change, how do we react to all that has happened in Korea, and all that is to be different outside?

Korea has been a place where we have all gotten the chance to grow. To love freely. To be nurtured in very different ways. To nurture in our own special ways. None of us expected anything quite like this, and each silently believe no one outside of it will ever understand.

And now we come to this time of separation. Some have already left, some are getting ready to leave, and some are staying. Though there will be pockets and groups of us all over the world, the rupture of this group will be heavily grieved. And is being grieved already.

For me, I have felt known.
It’s scary to leave that.
I’ve been refined by the hand of God, through kindred spirits.
It’s terrifying to leave them.
For me, this time ahead seems a barren wasteland.

A desert.
A wilderness.

מדבר
(midbar)

Time for a lesson. Time for some Hebrew.

There are several words that can be made from the three consonants DBR (דבר). Desert. Holy of Holies. Sheepfold.

The place where God brings his flock. So, somewhere he wants us to be. Umm…Okay?

When the M (מ) is added to those three, it makes the word “wilderness”. It also means “speaking” or “words”. So the wilderness, a place where God brings his people, is the place of speaking. Follow?

Many times throughout the Bible, God’s people were in this place of speaking. Abraham, the father of our faith, lived and was promised everything in the desert. Moses spent 40 years walking in the wilderness with the children of God, and God spoke unto Moses. David fled to the wasteland for 40 days to escape the wrath of Saul, and heard God as he cried out in psalm. Jesus was led there by the Spirit, after his baptism, and the very Word of God flowed out of his mouth to rebuke the devil. If I want to hear God speak, I should go to the desert. But why there?

Because in this place of desolation, and temperatures so extreme I don’t think even Tay could handle it, I would not survive except by a direct intervention of God. There is nowhere else to turn, and this is when God speaks.

Because I’m finally in a place to realize that He provided everything in the Land of Milk and Honey. A place where I realize the danger that comes if I stay in that land too long, “in houses I didn’t build” - in an apartment I didn’t pay for, “drinking from wells I didn’t dig” – enjoying a community I didn’t bring together, or “eating crops that I didn’t sow” – receiving a paycheck I now think I hardly worked for, I will say “my hand has done this, and I will forget the Lord my God who brought me through the vast and terrible desert”.

Because whether desert or honey, God’s hand is always the one that holds everything I need.

Jesus takes it deeper… as he always does.

Blessed are the poor in spirit… blessed are those who mourn… blessed are the meek…blessed are the thirsty…hungry…persecuted…

Sound familiar? Sounds like a freaking desert. When I’m living in an emotional, spiritual, relational wilderness – that is when I am most ready to hear God speaking because I have nowhere else to turn.

These next months I know this is where I will be. When all I want is to hear Anna singing “cheer up darlin’”, when I want to have a Cha conversation with Cha… or Tay, when I want to speak Hebrew on the back of Kel’s scooter, when I don’t think I can go another morning without a cup of Tim Horton’s with Whit in our apartment, when I want to listen to “Sweet Lorraine” and watch Kels crump to it, when I want to sit across from Katie on the teeter-totter and feel the same.

When all I want to do is stand there in my pitiful misery and beg God to get me out of this stupid, ugly, lonely wilderness.

But why is this a blessing?

Because in the pain and sorrow of that moment I stand face to face with God – AND THAT IS A BLESSING. I cry out to him from the innermost desperation of my soul – AND THAT IS A BLESSING. And in that place of stretching wasteland, where I cannot take one more step unless God guides it, he speaks – AND THAT IS A BLESSING.

So why fear this place where God wants me to be? He blesses my desire to stay there. And so I will face leaving you. Leaving us. Leaving all of this. Because I would rather be blessed in my wilderness than to live in a land flowing with milk and honey and forget that God provides.

My desire for all of us, is that as we face the wilderness of life after Korea-as-we-have-known-it, that we would stand in that wasteland and not ask God to bring us back to that big bed with room for 8, but that we would ask Him where in this vast and terrible desert we are going to come face to face with Him.

And feel blessed.

Blessed because of the time we have had, blessed for what God will say to us in this wilderness, and blessed for the next land of milk and honey that he is leading us to.