Wilderness Wandering

That which makes me genuine is not how I am known by the world but how I am known by God. And it is not even how I am known by God but that I am known by God. I am who I am through my sense of being known by the One who has created me. There is within me that which is eternal. My whole spiritual struggle is the increasing illumination of that inner being. Striving to be known as significant by the world dims this inner light. The discipline of yielding inwardly to the inner light of God transforms me into the person God intends. 

Our journey through the Sinai impressed me with the magnificence of the wilderness. Once one leaves the built up resort areas around the Red Sea (now mostly deserted due to the political situation in Egypt) which cater to the whims and fancies of men and women one ventures into the very heart of the wilderness. It is barren but not without form. One becomes swallowed up in it. I can imagine what the Hebrew people might have felt as they left the lush river valley of the Nile and entered into this formidable land. Even in their slavery they had a certain comfort in the familiarity of their lives. They had at least the security of a world that they could depend on, harsh as it might be. Their daily lives were predictable which afforded them some control. They understood their world and themselves within that world and could thus contain it. 

Mt. Sinai

But here in the wilderness they would have lost all bearings of themselves as being defined by their surroundings. They would have become swallowed up in the wilderness; and in God Himself because here was not a God that they could contain within themselves. He was not the small God of their daily lives in Egyptian slavery but a new God with a new Name. Now they must trust their very lives to a God they did not understand. Even as God called Moses up to Mt. Sinai they became fearful and tried to make a god that they could understand and would be small enough to contain in the world that they had known.

We often face this dilemma in our spiritual lives. We groan for the largeness of genuine being but we cling to the relative safety and comfort of a self that is small enough to give us some sense of having an identity and significance. True spiritual formation leads us out into the desert where we lose the anchors of the false identity to which we cling. We become swallowed up in something greater than ourselves; not shapeless but yet devoid of the familiar. This calls for the discipline of “letting go” of that self which we have called “me.”

Yet the wilderness is not nothingness. In fact it is majestic in form. Those who wander through its valleys and defiles find not pleasant green pastures and rolling hills but stark and barren mountains towering above them. One understands why God had to guide the Hebrews through this wilderness as a cloud by day and pillar of fire by night. In our own experience of the wilderness it becomes critical that we look to Him however He might appear to us. Religion as a sort of cultural form or life ritual no longer works in the wilderness. Here we must seek the reality of God. The testing of the wilderness is to open ourselves to an unseen God and one whom perhaps in our heart of hearts we do not really trust. Our God has been a God of safety to whom we look to keep our lives running smoothly and manageable. But when we come into the desert it is easy to shake our fist at God and blame Him for failing us. He is taking away our comfort and security to which we have become accustomed. The wilderness is out of the groove. 

Do we react any differently than the Hebrews? Do we not murmur against God? If we really look deep within us we will likely find a fist-shaking, fearful, person railing against a God who has allowed such disorientation to come into our lives. There is a degree of comfort in our self-pity. It lets us hold on to ourselves and maintain a sense of control over ourselves as we try to cling to that small plot of land that we call “me.”  But the first step toward finding a transcendent security that enables us to face our adverse situation is to recognize and confess the complaining part of ourselves. Then we can bring this fearful, weak person into the light of God’s grace. 

One proven method of desert travel

This is the teaching of the Exodus. The murmuring generation must die in the wilderness before that generation born in the wilderness itself might enter the Promised Land. We then begin to get some sense of God Himself holding us and containing us within this wilderness. It is here, not in the lush valleys of the Nile, that God forms Christ within us. To walk in the wilderness is to allow ourselves to be swallowed up in God’s transformational work.