A Hurting, Thankful Bride (Parts 1 &
2)
She's hurting, but she dare not get
upset or complain, for He is perfect and she doesn't want to seem
ungrateful, or... un-spiritual. So she thanks Him for the crumbs,
thanks Him for the rags that at least cover her nakedness as she
wanders the desert. She licks the dew off the blades of grass, she
crushes a cactus with a rock and sucks the juice. She is thankful for
the liquid that keeps her body alive. She remembers a story of water
from a rock and manna from the sky, but it's not to be found here.
There is a purpose, she says, I just can't see it. He loves me, His
word says so, He has shown me His kindness before. Other seasons have
been good, this is just a difficult season, press on, press on.
A
sandstorm sweeps the desert, she survives, in a mysterious cave she
stumbled upon at the last minute. Thank you God, she says, you have
spared my life again. Her eyes sting from the dust, she wipes them
with her rags. The storm over, she emerges from the cave and adjusts
her burning eyes to view the landscape. All the cacti lay on the
ground, destroyed. She waits for the dew, she licks the grass. The
sun rises, the dew dries up and the heat saps her strength. She goes
back to the cave to hide from the heat and collapses in a heap. Thank
you for the cave and the dew, she whispers hoarsley, her lips crack
and bleed. She takes a breath and something breaks, her exhale is a
wail, loud and clear. She cannot control it any longer. She cannot
silence her broken heart and she wails. Deeply. Tears flow, hot and
abundant. She wails her heart's contents, spilling it all over the
ground, all over His feet. Loudly. The lament pushes tears into dry
ground. Her tears begin to reach seeds that have waited, waited,
waited...
As she is overwhelmed by the pain of
her wounds and the pain of her broken heart she pours out her tears.
Her wails ask Him where His lovingkindness is, where He has gone.
Does He not see? Where are You? What have I done? The tears pour hot
to the ground, to the dry, barren ground. As the streams flow from
her heart toward her God, the thirsty, cracked desert drinks deeply.
Seeds long forgotten, buried deep, are awakened by the flow. As she
lays on the ground, at His mercy, the only hope she has left, she
feels a softness under her fingers. She opens her eyes, dimly, and
sees a transformation beginning all around her barren place. Shoots
of fresh, green growth have enveloped her and begin to rise upward,
reaching to the sky. As her body is cooled and nourished by the
vegetation, she gains her strength. All around her a beautiful garden
has sprung up. She hears footsteps coming toward her. In the cool of
the evening He has come, as in days of old, where intimate friendship
was worked out in the very first garden. Suddenly she realizes, that
her lament was not only hers, but His.
The Well: Living Water
A desert is a place devoid of streams,
rivers or lakes; there can be no life there apart from the
underground streams that become accessible through an Oasis or a
well. If there is no place where the underground streams can surface,
then the water has to be accessed through digging and actively
drawing it up as needed. Labourious, but sufficient nonetheless. Once
drawn up it nourishes those who are present at that moment to drink
it, or infrastructure must be built to keep drawing the water out and
distributing it for specific purposes.
Once you have this water source, you
are saved, there may be desert all around you, but you will be a
garden sufficient for the nourishment of those whom God puts in your
path. I think that is a key element in the equation of sufficiency.
If we are careless with what God has given us – not taking
sufficient time to draw from the well of His presence, we will begin
to wilt. We can give of ourselves generously however, in the place of
His calling, doing what we see Him doing when we sit with Him in the
secret place, and not run dry. As we are faithful to draw on Him as
we pour out that Living Water through our own hearts to others, our
“gallons per minute” increase to meet the demand.
It is all about spending time at the
Well, without that, we won't last, we won't have fresh water for
ourselves or others, and we may turn to whatever substitutes are
available. Unfortunately these may sustain a form of life for a
period of time, but it can't produce good fruit, there can't be
healthy growth, if any at all. This form of life may be diverting for
a time, but eventually it will produce it's own type of fruit, as
Jesus said, “By their fruit you will know them”, (what their
source is).
Sources of water have been fought over
since ancient times, scripture tells us that Earth used to be watered
from a mist that rose and fell, as well as from underground streams,
however that changed with a significant climate shift that caused
heavy rains and some famous flooding. No longer was all of Earth
watered equally with a mist and accessible underground streams, the
garden of Eden a not so distant memory, but the drastic shift in the
climate that brought deserts to the earth was a result of the
increased, widespread and prolific perversion of mankind. This is a
picture of the spiritual condition, as the “visible speaks of the
invisible”. What we do affects nature and not just by physically
polluting it. Scripture tells us that nature “groans for the Sons
of God (a unisex term like Man, as in mankind) to be revealed”,
like a mother bringing forth children, the earth is instrumental in
bringing forth the mature Sons of God. Sons who are in relationship
with the Father.
So with that in mind, should we be
surprised when we find ourselves in a dry place, forced to dig for
water, battling forces that are hellbent on preventing the Children
of God from “subduing the earth” - turning it back into the
garden of Divine intimacy, beauty, nourishment and health? In places
where Oasis exhist there are also fierce battles, and many, many,
attractive substitutes, to keep people from drawing on the source of
Living Water. It is as though we have an enemy. The destroyer of life
will do anything to prevent the children of God from succeeding in
their divine commission.
We have been given the means to
transform the world around us, it has been slow going. Why? We are in
a spiritual war and one of satan's greatest tactics is to turn what
ought to be authentic relationship with God – into mere
religiosity, form without power, stagnant rules of man that put
people in bondage rather than set them free, decimating our hearts.
There have been genuine revivals, outpourings of God's Spirit,
healings, miracles, signs and wonders, but we build theology around
it, enshrine it and begin to worship the infrastructure instead of
the Source. The Source would not share us with anything less than
Himself and so He withdraws, hoping we'll notice what we did, hoping
we'll notice the impotence of our foolishness. If we notice, we
pursue, we grow and we increase. If we don't notice, and continue
with our new status quo of maintaining and worshiping an outdated
infrastructure, we become stagnant and spiritually sterile.
One of the reasons we don't pursue Him
when He withdraws His manifest presence, is that He often withdraws
into the wilderness, into the desert. We may initially realize His
manifest presence has left, but when we catch sight of that desert we
get scared and we convince ourselves that He wouldn't have gone
there, so we camp out where we experienced Him last, hoping He'll
return to where we are, but that probably won't happen, as His Word
tells us...”Behold, I am doing a new thing, do you not percieve
it?”
Why the wilderness? Why a desert? In my
own experiences I have learned that this is where He reveals His
heart to us, when we choose to follow, trusting, by faith, to put all
our eggs in His basket, we enter a realm of intimacy and maturity in
God that He only opens to us as we prove our love this way.
Eventually the wilderness and the desert will test all our resolve,
even while He cares and provides for our needs (which He determines).
We will run into questions about what He is doing and what He was
thinking – either that, or we will tell our heart to be quiet and
keep a stiff upper lip... but then we have lost the whole point.
The pursuit of God into the desert
opens the door to a deeper knowing of His heart only after we open
the doors of our heart to Him. As we pour out our hearts to Him in
all honesty, emptying of ourselves (the good, the bad and the ugly),
He comes and fills us, He not only provides for us physically, but
emotionally. He satisfies our heart, and in doing so, reveals His
heart for us. We get to know Him more deeply, in a way that would not
have been possible in the excitement and rush of our mountain top
experiences with Him. Wilderness, or desert times, when navigated
well (in pursuit of God), will precede a spiritual promotion. It
prepares our hearts to recieve and succeed in seasons of abundance,
minimizing our ability to become corrupted. We will be able to
discern God's voice among the throngs of others that will clamour for
our attention in the lands flowing with milk and honey.
