The wilderness is hard!
We feel so much pain, completely deserted and feel the full gravity of the battle crushing us. We feel not only the loss, and the void it left, but also feel we are suffocating.
It’s the last place we want to be!
The worst part is, often times, nobody knows it, but the Man in the Wilderness and us.
But to be honest, it’s the rain, mixed with the sun, that allows us to grow and to fully appreciate the Keeper of the Wilderness shows just as much care tending to it as He does His greenest pastures!
It’s in the wilderness, when we feel so alone, so thirsty and hurt so deeply that Jesus meets us there. He is waiting for us— patiently, lovingly, sincerely and eagerly . . . And when He sees us in the distance, He runs as hard as he can to swoop us into His mighty arms, like a child. He hugs us, wipes away our tears, encourages us, gives us His Living Water and tells us He has never left us not even now.
In our darkest, hardest and loneliest moments . . . There is JESUS!
“I’ve been waiting for you! I’m so glad you’re here,” He exclaims with all the tenderness of a loving Father.
We wish we could say the same.
The sweet embrace is everything we hoped it would be. He holds us for what feels like forever, yet really is only a few grains of sand in the hourglass of time.
It’s what Love feels like when it wraps its arms around you.
The pain instantly leaves.
The wound begins its healing.
We can breathe again.
Jehovah Rapha performed the most complex surgery with just one touch.
What brought us into the wilderness is forgotten in that moment.
In the twinkling of an eye, we feel Love in a way we’ve never felt it! We feel completely accepted, validated, supported and unconditionally loved with His cloak of Mercy and Grace wrapped around us.
And we feel, welling up inside us, something we haven’t felt since we entered the wilderness— HOPE!
Hope that things will get better mixed with the Truth, looking into the Keeper of the Wilderness’s eyes; they already are!
Even though, we hate the pain we feel, and that we have to go through it; we’re actually, surprisingly even, glad we’re here!
And it’s in that same place, if we will just be still, that the Creator, who breathed the Universe into being, will teach us. We are both His prized pupil and His beloved child the apple of His eye.
He sits us down and imparts to us all we are willing to learn— the most beautiful, yet often times simple, lessons of life. Out of His lips, they are the most profound and carefully taught lessons with Wisdom only He can breathe— things that can’t be learned in quite the same way in the warmth, and comfort, of the sunshine . . . Only in the seclusion of the wilderness.
It’s in that place, through the noise of the storm, we will hear words that will penetrate our very beings, pierce our hearts and bring nourishment to our souls with the Truth everything will be OK.
“I love you!”
John Mark Brooks
RZN KING
