Only from the desert

We love the good times. We love laughter, sunshine, birthday parties, and promotions. The good times can make us feel incredible about who we are and what we have accomplished in life. But life isn’t always filled with the good times. In Ecclesiastes, we are reminded that “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven (Ecc 3:1). Sometimes God’s purpose is to lead us through the desert. In the desert we reflect upon who God is and what he has accomplished.

For the past two days, our TKU travel group has experienced the desert. The heat, the heights, the valleys and the tears. The desert is unpleasant and unfriendly, only the hearty things survive. When we are in the desert, it is difficult to see anything than your immediate surroundings but if we look up, we can see that God has a higher purpose. On this trip we have learned that when we enter a desert in our lives we often ask him to remove us from the heat, the fire and the tears not realizing the blessing we will lose if we don’t go through it. Habakkuk experienced this when he said:

Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls: Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation. The LORD God is my strength, and he will make my feet like the deer’s feet, and he will make me to walk upon the high places. (Hab 3:18-19)

When we were walking to Mt. Sinai (one of several potential locations) this morning, we saw several of these animals standing on a rock far above us. Their feet were nimble on the cliffs high above, the jagged rocks did not impede their progress and they were not in the valley but had conquered the terrain and had learned to live in the extremes.

Sometimes God does move the mountains and we are overjoyed but sometimes he wants us to be like this desert deer and become strong learning to leap over the rocks that are put in our way with nimble feet. The tough news for us is that this skill does not come from the good times; it only comes from the desert. May God bless you and teach you how to leap over every rock and give you nimble feet the next time you go through a difficult season and may you find the beauty of the desert as we have the past few days.