Vulnerable

God often meets His people in the desert. It is a place where they learn to depend upon Him and upon one another. It is where He prepares them for the purpose He has for them. It is where God can speak to them into the stillness of the desert.

But God is not the only one we encounter in the desert. There is an Enemy lurking. He tries to lure and tempt us and, weak as we are, he often triumphs.

Jesus confronted this enemy while He was in the desert.

Jesus went forty days without food there and, in the greatest understatement in the Bible, it says He “became very hungry” (Matthew 4:2, NLT).

In this moment of vulnerability, the Enemy confronted Jesus.

Satan – which in Hebrew means “the accuser” – tempts Jesus three times. Each angle the Enemy takes is worth study in its own right, but perhaps the most telling line in the account is Satan’s prelude to his temptations.

“If you are the Son of God…”

Just prior to Satan’s temptations, Jesus had been baptized by a man named John. As Jesus came out of the water, a voice boomed from heaven. “This is my dearly loved Son, who brings me great joy” (Matthew 3:17, NLT).

God had just publicly declared Jesus was His Son. Yet Satan calls into question Jesus’ identity.

If you are the Son of God.

Here’s the thing. If you are a Christian, God has also made a declaration about your identity.

See how very much our Father loves us, for he calls us his children, and that is what we are! (1 John 3:1, NLT)

You are a part of God’s family.

But the Enemy will try to convince you otherwise.

He’ll come to you in the desert and whisper in your ear. He’ll call into question God’s love and care for you. He’ll come with accusation about how imperfect a child you are. He’ll plant the seeds of entitlement and distrust and bitterness and despair and anything else he can come up with to damage your relationship with God your Father.

He’ll even try to convince you that if you were really a child of God then you wouldn’t be in a desert in the first place.

The Enemy comes to us in the desert because we are vulnerable in the desert.

In our vulnerable state, we have two options.

We can be deceived by the Enemy or we can be dependent upon our Father.

Make no mistake. We’ll do one or the other.

If we are not dependent on God, we will be deceived by the Enemy.

When the Enemy begins to whisper, don’t listen. He’s a liar. Listen instead to the voice of the Father.

When the Enemy hurls temptations, ignore him and run to the Father for wisdom and strength.

When the Enemy calls into question your identity, remember who the Father says you are.

The Enemy is near, but the Father is nearer.

A Gentle Whisper

Jezebel, the wicked wife of the wicked king of Israel, wanted Elijah dead for defeating her priests of Baal in a competition of the gods. The God of Israel – Elijah’s God – had decisively demonstrated his power over the false god Baal. Jezebel didn’t take well to her priests being defeated (and then slaughtered). She swore to hunt down Elijah and kill him.

So, Elijah fled.

To the desert.

And God met him there. To encourage him. To comfort him. To lead and guide him.

But not how Elijah expected.

And as Elijah stood there, the Lord passed by, and a mighty windstorm hit the mountain. It was such a terrible blast that the rocks were torn loose, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake there was a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire there was the sound of a gentle whisper. (1 Kings 19:11-12, NLT)

God wasn’t in the windstorm.

He wasn’t in the earthquake.

He wasn’t in the fire.

He was in a gentle whisper.

In the Hebrew, He was in the kol da’mama da’kah. The still, small voice of God whispering into the quiet desert. To one person. Who was listening.

God still speaks. We often don’t hear Him because we are waiting for a windstorm or an earthquake or a fire, when all the while He was been speaking in a gentle whisper.

We can only hear it if we quiet ourselves and really listen.

You may be in the desert right now. You may feel like God is silent. You may feel like He isn’t there at all.

He is. He always has been and always will be.

He is there and He speaks every single day. He encourages and comforts and leads and guides and convicts.

More often than not, He speaks through His Word – the Bible.

The quiet of the desert can feel lonely but it can also be the perfect place to listen.

Are you listening? Can you quiet yourself long enough to hear the still, small voice of your loving God?

Resting in Green Meadows

As a young boy, David tended his father’s sheep in the desert. As a young man, he was a fugitive hiding in the desert from Saul, the king of Israel, who wanted him dead.

David himself became king after Saul died but fled to the desert again when his son Absalom tried to overthrow him.

David wrote often about his time in the desert, but he is best known for Psalm 23.

You might know that poem.

The Lord is my shepherd;
    I have all that I need. (Psalm 23:1, NLT)

David was always confident that he had all that he would need because the Lord was his trustworthy shepherd.

A shepherd’s role is to provide for and protect the sheep.

David had all that he needed because he was a sheep who is following the shepherd.

And God was – and is – a good shepherd.

How, though, does God care for His sheep? David told us.

He lets me rest in green meadows;
    he leads me beside peaceful streams. (Psalm 23:2, NLT)

I’m from the Midwest. When I think of “green meadows,” I think of the lush farmland that blankets the region. Israel – David’s homeland – wasn’t like that.

Shepherds in the Bible tended their flocks in the desert. The lush farmland was for, well, farmers. And farmers would not have been thrilled with flocks of sheep grazing in their fields.

When David speaks of “green meadows,” he’s not talking about an all-you-can-eat buffet.

He’s talking about the little tufts of grass that pepper the desert landscape. He’s talking about the next mouthful.

God’s promise in the desert is not that we’ll have everything we want.

His promise is that we’ll have everything we need.

He promises the next mouthful.

The desert teaches us dependence. It teaches us trust in our Shepherd. It teaches us to follow Him with faith and in confidence. It teaches us to rest in who God is and what He has done.

Are you following the Shepherd through the desert? Are you trusting Him – depending on Him – to give you all that you need?

Purpose in the Desert

Moses was nothing more than a lowly shepherd when God showed up and gave Moses his marching orders.

Moses grew up among Egyptian royalty but, years earlier, had fled to the desert after he’d killed an Egyptian for beating one of the Israelite slaves.

He ended up in the land of Midian. He married, had children, and settled down.

He took a job tending his father-in-law’s sheep in the desert for the next forty years.

Moses assumed he would live out his days as a shepherd. He had grown accustomed to the quiet rhythm of the desert. He wasn’t expecting anything to change.

Yet, it was there, in the desert, that God showed up.

God gave Moses the seemingly impossible mission of leading the people of Israel out of their slavery in Egypt to the land that God had, long ago, promised to give the descendants of Abraham.

And the only way to get from Egypt to the promised land was through the desert.

The same desert Moses spent forty years walking.

He knew the land inside and out

All this time Moses thought he was just tending sheep but God was actually preparing him to lead His people.

Maybe God has a purpose for your desert. Maybe He’s using it to prepare you for something.

Let’s not squander this time. We’ll never get it back.

Maybe it’s time to turn off the TV, close out of social media, and put the phone down.

Pick up a book. Learn or refine a skill. Invest time in something God can use.

Let’s give Him as much as to work with as we can so we’ll be prepared when He shows up with our marching orders.

Deserts and Dependence

Abraham sat in the shade of his tent and waited out the hottest part of the day. Looking out into the distance, he saw three men approaching.

Abraham leapt to his feet and ran out to meet them. He invited them into his home and then went to find his wife Sarah.

“Hurry! Get three large measures of your best flour, knead it into dough, and bake some bread.” Then Abraham ran out to the herd and chose a tender calf and gave it to his servant, who quickly prepared it. (Genesis 18:6-7, NLT)

Sarah prepared bread from sixty pounds worth of flour. Their servant roasted an entire calf. Abraham garnished the meal with yogurt and milk.

This was an extravagantly generous meal for three men.

I never understood why Abraham would have gone to such great lengths for these strangers until I lived this story.

We were hiking through the southern Israeli desert when we came to a Bedouin camp. (The Bedouin are nomadic Arabs that live mostly in desert regions.)

Our guide knew this particular Bedouin family quite well and, when they saw us approaching, they sent a young boy out on a donkey to escort us into the camp.

A beautiful woman named Hadijah welcomed us into her home and immediately put her daughters to work baking bread and preparing the sweetest (and hottest) tea I’ve ever tasted.

We gathered in their open-aired common room and rested our tired legs. The shade of the tent was a welcome respite from the scorching desert sun.

Why would Hadijah shelter and feed sixty smelly, sweaty strangers?

Because she knew what Abraham knew.

The desert is a place of dependence.

It is a place where we depend on others and they depend on us.

It is a place where we can give and receive hospitality and generosity.

It is a place to bless others and to be blessed by others.

When we’re in our own deserts it is so easy to be concerned only about our own needs.

But, just for a moment, let’s change our focus.

Instead of asking how we are going to survive our deserts, let’s look out into the distance and see how we can help others survive theirs.

With Jesus in the Desert

I don’t remember if it happened on my first or second trip to Israel, but I will never forget the day – or the lesson.

Our bus driver navigated the winding road through the Negev desert. There was nothing but miles of rocks and dirt.

Then, without warning, he pulled off to the side of the road.

Our teacher got off and began walking into the desert.

We gathered our packs, grabbed our Bibles, and hurried after him.

Within minutes we could no longer see the bus or the road. Sweat was trickling down our backs and our clothing was coated in dust kicked up by a welcome breeze.

Our teacher kept walking. In silence. For an hour.

He finally stopped and waited for his students to gather around.

“Why did you follow me out here?” he asked us. “You have no idea where you are right now. You don’t know the way out. What makes you think I do?”

We stood in silence, unsure where he was going with this.

“You followed me out here because you trust me. You trust I know where we’re going. You trust I’ve been this way before. I know how long your water will last. Even though you don’t know what’s up ahead, even though you don’t know what’s around the next turn, I do.”

He paused.

“That’s what it means to follow Jesus.”

Some of us are in our own deserts these days.

It’s barren and dry and you’re not really sure how long your water will last. You don’t know where you’re going or what’s up ahead.

You might feel lost or disoriented or just scared.

If that’s where you are, you’re in good company. The Bible is filled with people who spent time in the desert. In the coming weeks, we’ll look at their stories and discover what they can teach us about navigating our deserts.

For now, remember that you’re not alone.

You have a caravan of people hiking right beside you.

And you have a Leader. 

Trust your Leader.

He’s been this way before.