There is nothing so useless that God can't make it useful

"There is nothing so useless that God can't make it useful."

Terry made this point clear early in the morning as we stood on the sand overlooking the Dead Sea. The Dead Sea shouldn't be worth anything, there are no fish and no way to transport goods across it. Yet for some reason, people have inhabited the surrounding area all throughout history. People found incredible ways to utilize the sea to support themselves and build communities around it. As we gazed upon the water, it was such a beautiful symbol showing us that with God, not even death can keep us from life.

We have all developed a renewed appreciation for the desert and for the desert experiences in our life. After we departed from the Dead Sea, we took a hike into the desert. We got back to a secluded area where we looked upon the rugged slopes and sat on the rocks. In the distance, we saw a shepherd tending to his flock. The environment we were in would have been very similar to what the Israelites lived in as Moses led them out of Egypt. It is said that God's people wandered in the desert for 40 years, but the people were never lost, they knew where they were, they knew that God was keeping them in the desert for a purpose.

God's people had been slaves in Egypt for hundreds of years. The desert was God's way of teaching His people to trust in him daily. Early on in the Exodus story, the people wanted to return to Egypt. They thought that God would not provide for them, they claimed their lives in Egypt as slaves were not that bad. They would rather return to slavery than die in the desert. As we sat on the rocks underneath the hot sun, you sympathize with the people more. It was hard enough for us to find a place to sit on the rocky terrain, finding a place to lay down would have taken considerable effort. God used a timeframe of 40 years, the average life span at the time, to get His people to depend on him. As Terry says, "God brought his people out of Egypt, but he spent 40 years getting Egypt out of His people." The desert could not have supported all of the people, there just is not enough to go around. They had to depend on God daily, each morning they would wake to manna for them to eat. They learned to live on only what God provided, not seeking more, but having enough.

Moses speaks in Deuteronomy chapter 8 to God's people as they are in the desert:

"And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord."

God was not just making His people better, he was creating them to be something new. A new generation that would trust in Him and live by faith. In the story of Jesus, there is a point where he is led out to the desert to be tempted by Satan. He is there for 40 days (no coincidence), he is fasting, and at his weakest moment Satan comes to him and says: "If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread." Jesus responds with those beautiful words from Deuteronomy and says, "It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God."

The Exodus story where God leads his people out of Egypt is not just a standalone story in the Bible. As Terry taught us, it is a story that is played out on a cosmic scale with Jesus Christ. We can look back on how God worked through His people then and see that it is consistent with how we should relate to Christ. Only instead of using the desert to create a new generation that learned to trust in Him, in Christ, he uses our desert experiences to transform us personally into new creations that completely put our faith in Him. As Christians, we are not called to become better, we are a new creation in Christ.

Our application with this experience was simple, but powerful. Can we pray that we would be given JUST what we need so we can learn to trust in Him. And can we look at every challenge in our life not as a random event but as an opportunity. The suffering we endure in this life, the desert experiences we go through are not just personal, they are essential.

We then drove to a location known as Ein Gedi. This area was such an incredible contrast to the desert hike. On our hike we were uncomfortable, hot, the sun was beating down on us. But Ein Gedi, just a small distance away, was a relief from the desert. Natural springs flowed from the East and created waterfalls. Because of the springs, there were acacia trees that provides some shade. The temperature was much cooler, in short, it was a relief from the desert. It was in Ein Gedi that 1 Samuel chapter 24 occurs. In this story, David is running from King Saul. Saul knows that David is God's chosen one and he is determined to kill this threat to his throne. David, and his men, were on the run and had sought relief in Ein Gedi, in fact, they were hiding in the natural caves in the mountains. King Saul stumbles into the cave where David is hiding and David has every chance to kill Saul and claim his throne. But instead, he cuts off a corner of the King's robe to prove to Saul that he means him no harm.

Saul meant to kill David and David made the determination that he was not going to take God's will into his own hands. If God wanted him to be King, he knew the ends should not justify the means. It was a great lesson to remember that we must trust God enough to do it His way and then trust Him with the outcome. This is a common theme in the Bible. God had to teach His people this lesson in the desert, they had to trust Him when he said he would provide them manna each morning. If they tried to do it their way and to hoard the manna overnight, the manna would spoil and rot.

We had two experiences fresh in our mind this morning. The harsh reality of the desert and the cool, flowing water of Eid Gedi. Terry made a very powerful application for us as Christians. We are around people everyday who are wandering in the desert. These people are dying for thirst and they are trying to quench their thirst with their own cisterns (read about Cisterns on Day 1). People build cisterns by thinking if they just get that new job things will be ok, or if they just marry the right person, or if they just get out of their current marriage, or if they just look the right way. We thirst so desperately but what we need is living water. So as Christians, are we going to lead them to living water or are we going to just be another part of their desert experience?

"If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, "Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water." - John 7:37-38

Jesus is the only answer to quench our thirst and we are called to lead people to Him. We can drink from our own cisterns, but they will always leave us thirsty, and eventually they dry up forever. Christ is the rock that Moses hit in the desert that provided water for God's people, there is nothing else.

We wrapped up our time in the desert with a trip to Qumran. This was the site in which the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered. Qumran was a community of people who escaped from what they felt like was a corruption of their religion and then fled to the desert to remove any obstructions from their worship of God. As the Roman army was conquering the area (1st Century AD) the Qumran people hid the scrolls they had produced in clay pottery within the caves of the mountain. These scrolls were discovered by a goat herding shepherd in 1946 and then an extensive excavation project started to find other scrolls hidden in the caves. The Dead Sea scrolls were over 1,000 years older than the previous oldest Bible we have on record. And what is remarkable is how consistent the scrolls were to the translations that had been passed down through history. Interestingly, the book of Isaiah is the only book that we have all of the scrolls for within all of the scrolls uncovered to date from the Qumran area. I think this is fitting given how much of the prophecy of Christ is revealed through the prophet Isaiah.

As we concluded our desert experience, Terry read us a few verses from Proverbs that articulate what we have learned over the last two days:

"Remove far from me falsehood and lying; give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is needed for me, lest I be full and deny you and say "Who is the Lord?" or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of God." - Proverbs 30:7-9

God used the desert so intentionally with His people. He used it to teach us to trust in Him. He used to it reveal his greater story in Christ. He used it to strip the obstructions from people's faith. He used it to preserve His word in caves. He used it to help us truly understand what it means to have water that will quench our thirst. As Terry told us, "prosperity is a greater temptation for people to lose their faith than hardship."

Let us embrace our desert experiences, use them to depend upon Him, and recognize in others when they are wandering through the desert so we can help bring them to the living water.